Her jaw dropped nearly to the floor. Then she got mad. Really mad.
Shaking with fury, she shot to her feet. “I don’t know what your fucking problem is or why you’re being so goddamn mean, but screw you.”
Chapter 4
This house was not big enough for the both of them.
Julie shoved a spoonful of oatmeal in her mouth and tried to concentrate on the taste of cinnamon and apple, pissed that she was even aware of the sounds of the shower running in the background. A hot, steamy spray that would hit a naked masculine chest, plastering those fine blond chest hairs to Tommy’s skin as the water rolled down his body.
Especially after what he’d said to her last night.
Spinster.
What was this, the freaking 1800s?
“Good. I’m glad I caught you before you left.”
She jerked her head up.
Oh. For the love of God.
He stood in the doorway, a towel wrapped low around his waist, still damp from his shower.
Her belly twisted painfully with the need to touch the man, and not in a best-friend way. Which pissed her off even more.
“What?” The bite in her tone came through loud and clear.
He grimaced. “Yeah, okay, I deserve the anger. I was an asshole last night. I’m sorry.”
Striving to be civil, she wrangled her fury with him. “Where’d that even come from? Do you have an issue with our relationship you’re not telling me? I’ve never made any demands on you other than as a friend.”
She’d made damn sure she’d only done that because she’d always known Tommy was incapable of giving her more.
He slid his hand through his wet locks, something she knew he did when frustration was getting to him. “Julie, I love you and I want to see you happy. It bothers me how alone you are.”
“Why? It doesn’t bother me.”
“I just want to be sure I’m not somehow filling the man role in your life and it’s making you complacent.”
Of course. Since every other woman he came across took any scrap of attention he flung her way, his best friend had to be completely satisfied with the excessive Tommy time she received, to the point that she didn’t need another man. Wouldn’t his ears burn if he knew how much she’d give to move past him? “You’re not,” she deadpanned.
He swallowed, then gave a jerky nod. “All right, then. I won’t say anything more about it.”
“Good. Because I’m getting really sick of hearing your opinion of my love life.” She shoved back her chair and picked up her plate. “I have to get to work. I’ll see you tonight.”
After cleaning up and grabbing her things, she hurried to her car.
Numb.
That was how she felt. That had to be progress. It showed that she’d made some kind of disconnection within herself that was rewiring to see Tommy in a different way. Thank God.
Twenty minutes later, she pulled into the vet clinic’s parking lot. As she walked in through the back entrance, her partner, Melody, frantically motioned to her from the front desk. “Come here.
You’ve got to see this.”
The other vet was usually much more controlled with her emotions. The barely restrained eagerness rolling off her took Julie slightly aback. “What is it?”
“Come. Here.” Her waving increased. “Your nine o’clock is already here. You’re not going to believe what you’re about to see.”
Curiosity piqued, Julie cautiously stepped around the reception desk that was separated from the waiting area by a glass window. Her mouth dropped open.
“I know, right!” Melody said, awestruck.
There, stuffed in one of their tiny waiting room chairs, was the biggest, most ripped man she’d ever seen. Rippling muscles strained beneath a tight shirt, the sleeves of which had been cut to make room for his bulging biceps. But it wasn’t the man alone that made her hottie meter go off.
It was the way he was cooing at the white Persian kitten he held in his huge arms.
“My word,” Julie breathed, thoroughly captivated by the sight.
“To say the least,” Melody said. “Have you ever seen anything so sexy?”
Unfortunately, she had—the man who’d stood in her kitchen this morning in only a towel, worried out of his mind that he was her standin boyfriend. She really needed to put his mind at rest. “Not lately,” she said thoughtfully.
“Do you know him?”
Julie knew why Melody was asking her the question. The man had the telltale signs of a cage fighter—the little injuries their bodies seemed to carry at all times. “No, he doesn’t look familiar, but I can’t see his face.” The man’s dark head was bent low over the kitten as he used one of his fingers to rub the fur between its pointy ears. “Besides, just because I’m friends with Tommy doesn’t mean I know all the guys on the circuit.”
“You know a lot of them, though.”
She couldn’t deny that. “What’s his name?”