“Tough day?”
I rubbed one calf muscle. “Just long. Busy, which is good. But we’re closed now, just locked the door.”
“What are your plans?”
“After I finish up here, which will probably take me a while, since I’m short-staffed today, I was going to swim. You have tennis tonight, right?”
“I do, and then we were planning on going out for pizza and a few beers after that, since it’s the last night this league meets. Is that OK?”
“That’s fine.” And it was fine, although I’d sort of hoped for some alone time with him tonight. Not because I missed him, but frankly I was a little wound up with sexual tension. A good hard bang sounded pretty damn good. Didn’t he feel the same way? “But I’d like to see you tonight. Maybe we could meet up later.”
“I’m not sure how late I’ll be.”
“Oh.” Damn. If I was the kind of girl who had sex toys, I’d pull them out tonight. At least I didn’t have to feel bad about seeing Miles…but I did have to tell Dan about it. Crossing my fingers it wouldn’t cause a fight, I said, “My old friend Miles Haas is in town. You remember him?”
“Who?”
“Miles Haas.”
“The sex maniac?”
I rolled my eyes. “He’s not a maniac, he’s a writer. He blogs for—”
“I know who he is. I still can’t believe that pipsqueak asshole gets all those girls. He’s gotta be lying, or making shit up.” Dan sounded mad about it.
“I have no clue. Maybe he does.” I doubted it, but I didn’t feel like arguing.
“So what’s the deal? Are you meeting up with him?”
“Maybe.”
“Where?”
“No plans yet.” I took a breath. “Do you have a problem with my seeing him?”
A pause. “No.”
“We’re just friends. That’s all we’ve ever been.”
“I know.” His voice had softened. “You’d never be interested in a guy like that.”
“A guy like what?”
“A sleazebag.”
“He’s not a sleazebag. He’s just a guy having a good time and writing about it.”
“As long as he’s not having a good time with you, I don’t care what he does.”
I smiled. “I’ll make sure he has a terrible time. We’ll probably just grab dinner or something. Catch up a little.”
“All right. I’ll see you tomorrow night. We have reservations at eight, right?”
“Yes. Skylar made them. Have fun tonight. Love you,” I added, hating how rote it sounded. It felt kind of rote, too.
He hung up without another word.
Skylar was right. We are boring.
But what could I do about it? The truth was, we both had things we wanted to do tonight more than we wanted to see each other, and that happened a lot these days.
Oh well. I’d worry about that tomorrow. Tonight I’d just have some fun with an old friend.
I sat there a minute longer, realizing that I hadn’t told Dan about Miles being at the coffee shop this morning when I’d arrived, or that he’d stayed half the day. I don’t know why I didn’t; it wasn’t as if anything had happened. We hadn’t kissed. We hadn’t even almost.
It wasn’t on purpose. You just forgot to mention it, said a sweet little voice in my head.
But deep down, I knew that wasn’t true.
? ? ?
When I’d finished prepping food for the next day and closing up the shop, I sat at the counter again and called Miles. “Hi.”
“Hey you.” He sounded sleepy.
“Did I wake you?” I pictured him, hair tousled and chest bare, reaching for his glasses on the nightstand.
What? What are you doing? Stop that—put some clothes on him this instant!
“Yes,” he said, clearing his throat, “but I’m glad you called. I was just having a dream about you.”
I slammed my eyes shut, my mind immediately taking off his pants.
“We were at your shop, and I was eating a bagel.”
“A bagel?” Relieved it wasn’t a sex dream, I smiled. “Don’t even have those here.” Wait, was there something sexual about a bagel?
“Yes, a bagel, and you wanted to take my picture but you couldn’t find your camera. And then you turned into a bear.”
I burst out laughing. “A bear? Seriously? Not even a bunny or a cat or something sweet and cute?”
“Nope. A big old bear.”
“And then what?”
“Then you called me.”
“I saved you from the bear that was myself.”
“Yes.” He made a sound like he was stretching, and my mind drifted back into dangerous territory. “So what’s up?”
“Well, I was going to go for a swim and then see if you wanted to meet.”
“Oh yeah? Where do you swim?”
“At the gym.”
“Come over here and swim.”
I hesitated. “At your house?”
“Yeah. We have a pool here, remember? In which I repeatedly kicked your sorry state champ ass?”
“Ha! You never!”