He sighed, but ignored my question. “Just finish what you were saying.”
I chuckled again and continued. “I was just gonna ask if we could go a little later. Rough day,” I added, not feeling the need to reveal the fact that my lengthy relationship with Jason had just crumbled and died about an hour ago.
“Oh, okay. Well, you probably should just chill then. We can go some other time. No rush.”
I perked up. “No! I wanna go; I just need like an hour.”
“Seriously, I understand; I had a long day too. The more I think about, it’s kind of late anyway. Why don’t we just go for lunch tomorrow or something?” he suggested. “Got anything going on?”
I thought of how utterly empty my life was. The only plans I had were to paint from sunup to sundown to keep my mind from over-analyzing the events of the day. “No, I’m free. Lunch will be fine.” I was already smiling, thinking about getting to spend more time with him.
“Cool.” AJ paused. “Anything happen today that you wanna talk about? I’m a pretty good listener.”
My smile grew, hearing him show genuine interest in my day. However, I didn’t want to talk about my woes. “I’m fine. There’s just a lot going on at work and stuff,” I replied, letting the ‘and stuff’ statement cover the Jason situation.
“Well, if you decide to vent, you have my number.”
I nodded like he could see me. “I do.”
I listened while AJ thanked the cab driver who’d just driven him home, and then closed the car door behind himself. “I guess I’ll let you finish up your bath then,” he concluded, sounding like he’d spoken the words through a smile. “And for future reference, you have my number if you need help with that too.”
I blushed like crazy and was thankful he couldn’t see me. “You’re being bad tonight! What’s gotten into you?”
He sighed and chuckled. “I know. You’re right. I’ll stop.”
Who said anything about stopping?
“What happened to the nice guy I had dinner with last night?” I asked coyly.
AJ sighed and I could hear his hollow footsteps in the background, like he was making his way up the stairwell headed toward his loft. “Just…ignore me,” he laughed. “I’m in rare form today.”
Meaning he hadn’t gotten any in a while and it was starting to get to him.
I shifted beneath the water, trying to ignore the fact that I was in the same boat – not that I’d cared about sex all that much before he came back into the picture, but lately, every time I was around him, I had to force myself not to think about it.
“It’s cool. You get a pass,” I replied.
“Thanks. But be forewarned, I may need several.”
“Duly noted,” I laughed again. “So what’re you gonna do tonight since we’re postponing our plans?”
He sighed. “Mmm….I’ll probably just head to bed early. Well…head to my ‘air mattress’ early,” he restated with a laugh.
“Aww, poor baby. When’s your bed coming?”
Another sigh. “When everything else comes.”
Including Kira, I thought to myself. The sobering reminder left me with nothing else to say at the moment.
“It’s not as uncomfortable as you’d think, though. You’ll see,” he added slyly.
I raised an eyebrow and forced the laugh that almost slipped out to manifest itself as nothing more than a grin. “Really, AJ? ‘I’ll see’?”
He laughed at his less than subtle innuendo. “In my defense, I did say I’d require several passes during this conversation, right?” There was silence while I sank further down beneath the water. “And it’s not totally my fault,” he added. “Hearing you over there sloshing around in the tub isn’t helping.”
Now I laughed out loud. “First of all, I’m not ‘sloshing’, thank you very much. Second of all, it’s not my fault that you called while I’m bathing.”
He let out a frustrated sigh. “Yeah…I know. Leave it to us and our impeccable timing.”