Page 30 of Fake Date with the Mountain Man

Chapter 11

MARLOW

There are not enough vibrating, pulsating, spinning, or throbbing contraptions on this planet to ease my tension after my encounter with Ryan. There isn’t a working battery left in my entire apartment come Monday morning.

The weekend went better than I anticipated…and worse. And now we’re friends, I guess?

Ryan is my friend. Ryan is my friend. This is my new mantra. I repeat it again and again in my head as I walk to work on Monday morning.

When I hear his voice in the break room, I bypass it completely and settle in at my desk without a much-needed caffeine infusion. He walks by my office a few minutes later, but he’s talking to Hunter so he doesn’t look over at me. My stomach flutters anyway.

Ryan is my friend.

My buddy, my pal, the guy who had his fingers inside me yesterday. The guy who said such dirty things into my ear that I’m still blushing today.

Around ten o’clock, I hear Ryan in the hallway again telling Hunter he’ll be out in the field for the next couple of days.

Perfect.

We just need a breather. A buffer of time to let things settle back into their proper place, then we can figure out how this friendship thing works between us.

___

By Thursday, we still haven’t found our footing. We’re all tense smiles and stiff pleasantries. We say things like ‘excuse me’ and ‘great, thanks’ and ‘looks like we might get some rain’.

Everyone else is horrified. Maybe they miss being a fly on the wall for our daily banter, or maybe they fear the worst. Emmett asked me yesterday if we were both abducted by pod people. No one knows what to do with this new version of Ryan and me.

And apparently, word is spreading fast.

That night, I get a text from Abby asking if I’m coming to the bar tomorrow after work. She’s dying to hear how last weekend went, and admittedly, I’ve been dodging her questions via text. I don’t know what to say.

I ponder happy hour for a minute. Some masochistic part of me wants to go just to see Ryan. Part of me is hoping for another mistake, something to quell the feeling inside of me, even if it would end in disaster.

More realistically though, I’ll get to the bar tomorrow night and have to watch women flirt with Ryan. He’ll flirt back, of course. He has no reason not to. I’ll have to watch him buy them drinks and maybe even leave with them at the end of the night.

I don’t think I could take it…not yet anyway.

I meant what I said to Ryan: I am incapable of separating the physical stuff from the emotional stuff. Exhibit A: these feelings I’m having for him ever since our encounter. I’m aware that it’s pathetic. We didn’t even have sex, but it was enough to make me feel swoony and possessive and even a little bit stabby when I think of him hooking up with someone else now.

I can’t make it tomorrow night,I reply to Abby’s text message.

Another hot fake date this weekend?she replies.

I type a response and then delete it. Then another and another. This goes on until Abby seems to realize something is wrong.

I was thinking of skipping HH tomorrow, too. Can’t drink anyway. Girls’ night in at my place instead?

Then,I’m not taking no for an answer. I need your help with the nursery.

Girls’ night in it is.

___

On Friday afternoon, Ryan and I wave awkwardly across the lobby. It’s the most interacting we’ve done in days. I leave the office a few minutes early so I don’t get swept up in the happy hour crowd and questioned about why I’m not attending. Ryan’s truck is already gone when I step out of the building. Maybe he is already at the bar…or maybe he has a date.

I change clothes quickly at home and pack up a few items before driving over to Abby’s house. It’s a few miles out of town on a dirt road. My GPS on my phone can’t seem to figure out where to turn, but I see her car parked in front of a cabin and pull in beside it.

Abby opens the door in a pair of leggings and an oversized sweatshirt.

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