“You don’t take care of yourself. You’re running yourself ragged at the university.”
“I do take care of myself. In fact, I was taking care of myself on Friday night but someone ruined my downtime.”
“He was an arse.”
Elodie cleared her throat meaningfully.
Adam held up an apologetic hand. “He was a butt.”
Declan and Hannah giggled. Maybe I did too.
“You don’t even know him. And thanks to you, I never will.”
“Stop changing the subject. I told you to make an appointment with the doctor’s office weeks ago.”
“You’re not my dad.”
“You’re being a child.”
“I’m being a child. Listen to you. He was a butt? What the hell, Adam? You’re making my headache worse.”
He frowned, and lowered his voice. “I’m just worried about you.”
Oh he was worried about her alright. I tilted my head to the side, watching him. God, he was looking at her like James looked at Rhian.
Was Adam in love with Ellie?
I stifled the urge to throw my fork at him and tell him to man up. If he cared about her, he should just be with her. What was so difficult about that?
***
“I would think you of all people would understand what was so difficult about that?” Dr. Pritchard frowned at me.
And I would know this… how? “Um… what?”
“You cared about Kyle Ramsey.”
I felt the knot in my stomach appear as it always did when I thought about him. “He was just a boy.”
“Who you didn’t want to care about because of Dru.”
Shit. She was right. I hung my head in my pain. “Then Adam’s doing the right thing, isn’t he? Braden would just get hurt. Like Dru did.”
“You didn’t kill Dru, Joss.”
I drew in a breath. “I wasn’t the bullet, no. But I was the trigger.” I looked the good doctor in the eye. “It’s still my fault.”
“One day, you’re going to realize that it wasn’t.”
***
After Sunday dinner at Elodie’s where Ellie and Adam acted as our entertainment, I was kind of exhausted watching them by the time we got home. A still not feeling well, and still pissed off, Ellie disappeared into her room and didn’t come out.
I, on the other hand, sat at my computer and started to write.
My phone beeped and I picked it up to find I had a text message from Braden.
I forgot how nice and big my office desk is at the club. I definitely need to fuck you on it.
I shook my head, my lips curled upwards as I text back. Luckily for you, I can work with nice and big.
I got an instant text back. I know ;) For some reason, Braden texting me a winky face made me grin like an idiot. For someone who was seriously intimidating when he wanted to be, he was also incredibly playful.
So when do you want to schedule me in for office desk sex? Let me know so I can pencil you in. My sex diary is filling up pretty fast here.
When he didn’t reply after five minutes, I bit my lip, remembering how serious he’d been about the whole ‘not sharing me’ thing.
I text him again. It was a joke, Braden. Lighten up.
I didn’t think he was going to reply, and was trying not to worry if I’d said the wrong thing— this whole fuck buddy thing wasn’t quite as stress-free as I’d been led to believe—when my phone beeped five minutes later. Hard to tell with you sometimes. Speaking of hard…
I was caught between laughing and scowling. What did he mean it was hard to tell with me sometimes? Deciding it best to let it go, since he was joking again, I text back … wood floor?
No…
… back book?
Think more anatomical…
… intestines?
OK, you just took the sexy out of it.
I laughed out loud, quickly texting him back. Last text. I’m working on my novel. I’ll see you and your hard cock on your nice and big office desk for sex later.
Good luck with the writing, babe. x The kiss freaked me out.
Better to pretend it was a smiley face. Just a smiley face…
My phone rang in the middle of my freak out over one little kiss. It was Rhian.
“Hey,” I answered breathily, still thinking about the little kiss and what it meant.
“Are you okay?” Rhian asked warily. “You sound… weird.”
“I’m fine. What’s up?”
“Just checking in. We haven’t spoken in a while.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m screwing Ellie’s brother. How are you and James?”
15
Braden was the master of the dirty text message. Sometimes he was subtle… other times well…
I can’t wait to be inside you again, babe. x