He looked into my eyes. “Are you happy?”
I didn’t even have to think about the answer. “I am.”
Baldwin’s eyes closed briefly, and he gave me another silent nod. “Maybe we can get coffee this weekend and catch up?”
I smiled. “Sure.”
Coffee at Starbucks was probably the best way to reset our friendship. The reset was entirely on my end, because Baldwin had never really been interested in me the way I’d been in him. But now that I was seeing someone, it wouldn’t feel right to go out with him for dinner. Maybe someday in the future, when more time had passed between the feelings I had for Baldwin and the start of a new relationship, but right now it would just feel wrong.
After we said goodnight, I took a minute to regroup my thoughts before going to the bedroom to call Drew back. It had been a long time since my feelings for Baldwin had grown. I couldn’t turn them off completely, but something had definitely changed. Even though I knew part of me would miss the unrestrained comfortableness I’d enjoyed with Baldwin when there was nothing holding me back, I realized it was more important for me to respect the boundaries I knew Drew would want me to have—like not inviting a man into my apartment this late while I was in my cute little pajamas.
Feeling content, I turned off all the lights and slipped into bed as I dialed Drew’s number on my cell.
“Hey,” I said.
“Visitor gone?” Wariness had crept into Drew’s confident voice.
“It was Baldwin. He wanted to check on me. Apparently he knocked last night and this morning and was worried because I didn’t answer his texts today either.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“I told him I’d slept at my boyfriend’s and had been busy, but everything was fine.”
“Your boyfriend, huh? Is that what I am?” There was relief in his voice.
“Do you prefer to be called something else?”
“I don’t know. What else you got?”
“Hmm…let’s see…how about man who gives me many orgasms?”
“That sounds like my Indian name.”
I laughed. “How about landlord with benefits or Captain Prolactinator?”
“Call me whatever you want to Professor Putz, as long as he knows you’re mine.”
Mine. I liked the sound of that. I wasn’t sure how it had happened. Knowing us, it had started to blossom in the middle of a fight and flowered while I was bent over his desk, but regardless of how we got here, somehow we had. And I realized there was nowhere else I’d rather be.
“Are you alone?”
“Roman’s down at the bar. Bartender is a woman. Don’t think he’ll miss my company.”
“Okay, good.” I reached over to my end table and opened the drawer. “Did you hear that?”
“Don’t tell me he’s knocking again.”
Slipping my vibrator out of the drawer, I decided Drew needed a little distraction from the last two horrible days. I switched it on and held it close to my cell for a few seconds before lowering it down my body.
“Is that—”
“My vibrator. It’s been lonely the last few weeks.”
Drew growled. “Fuck. I wish I was there to watch you.”
“I think I’d like that. Maybe when you get back.”
“Not maybe. I’m coming straight to your place from the plane.”
His reaction fueled me. I rubbed the vibrator on my clit and spoke as my voice strained.
“How about you come a different way first?”
Drew
“She’s got balls,” Roman not so quietly whispered to me as Alexa smiled our way while strolling into court with her lawyer, Atticus Carlyle.
My hands clenched into tight fists. After coming up empty for a day and a half looking for her, I don’t know why I was surprised she’d picked that asshole. I hated that fucking guy almost as much as he hated me. He was the quintessential good ol’ southern boy—thick drawl, bow tie, and worked God into his opening and closing arguments. He was also the one attorney who’d ever made me lose it in the courtroom. And we happened to be assigned the judge who’d hit me with sanctions as a result of that unraveling. It was starting to feel like nothing was a coincidence.
Needing to keep whatever semblance of calm I had left, I couldn’t even look at the other side of the court. Judge Walliford took the bench, and the uniformed clerk called our docket number. He spent a few minutes reading with his glasses at the tip of his nose and then looked up.
“Well, well, well, lookie what we have here. Seems the three of us have done this little dance before (be-fo-wah), haven’t we?
“Yes, your honor,” I said.
“Sure have, your ahn-na. Good to see you again,” opposing counsel drawled.
Walliford shuffled some papers and removed his glasses, then leaned back in his chair.