Page 37 of Playing With Danger

Sure, Valentine was hot. The times I’d been around him he’d been sweet. Well, that was when he wasn’t naked or kissing me. He wasn’t sweet then. Those times his sex appeal had ratcheted off the charts and made my vagina weep with need and my nipples tingle. I really needed to get a hobby or a man. Something, anything, to make me stop thinking about a man who very obviously wasn’t interested in me.

“Explain to me why you haven’t asked him out.”

Asked Valentine out? Was he nuts?

“He’s not interested,” I pointed out.

“How do you know?”

Because he kissed the ever-loving hell out of me, made some whispered dirty promises, dragged me out of the apartment, then firmly friend-zoned me.

“A girl knows.”

“That’s bullshit, Soph. You don’t know because you haven’t asked. It’s not always up to the man to make the first move.”

Suddenly this felt less like me and Valentine and more like him and a woman.

“Are you waiting for a woman to ask you out?” I carefully asked.

“Nope. Just trying to light a fire under your ass. Valentine’s a good guy. I like him. I like him for you. But if it’s not him, fine. But it’s time for you to get back out there. Oakley was a supreme douche but not all men are cheaters and assholes.”

His words felt like a blow to the sternum.

“I’m not still hung up on Oakley and you know that.”

“I know you’re not. You’re hung up on what he did to you. It’s time, Sophie. Again, if it’s Valentine, cool. But it’s time.”

I had no idea where this was coming from. I’d dated plenty in the last few years. That was, I’d had a lot of first dates, a few seconds, and only a couple that lasted a few weeks. And only one that had made it to the six-month mark before I broke things off.

“I date,” I defended myself.

“Sure you do. If you call interrogating a man over dinner a date.”

There might’ve been some truth in that. But only because I didn’t see any reason to get involved with a man if we didn’t share the same values.

“Why are you being such a dick about this?”

Hayden stood, skirted the coffee table, and faced me. Belatedly, the look of concern registered.

“Because I love you. Because you’ve been living behind a wall for a long time. And as much as it makes me physically violent thinking about what happened in that liquor store, it woke you up. You’re coming out of hiding and it’s time for you to open your eyes, look in the mirror, and see you are a beautiful, smart, funny woman. You need a man. And not for the reasons your mother thinks you do.”

Jesus, the blows kept coming.

“I need a man?”

“Right. You skipped right over the you’re beautiful, smart, and funny.”

Wait.

“Do you want to move out?”

Hayden’s mouth twisted and his eyes narrowed.

Clearly that was the wrong thing to ask.

“You know, I don’t know who I hate more,” he weirdly started. “Oakley for being such a monumental prick and because of that you’re now afraid to put yourself out there, or your mother for making you feel like you’re not what you are. And that’s a beautiful, smart, funny, loyal, kind, and loving great friend. Being all of those things, it’s a waste you not finding a man to give all that to. But mostly it’s a fucking tragedy you don’t find one to give all that back to you. And it seriously fucks me that after all these years of you being my girl you’d ask me something so fucked up.”

With that very successful parting shot, Hayden stormed out of the apartment before I could apologize.

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