Page 15 of A Powerful Attraction
Shawna glided it under her somewhat pointy nose. “You’re too good to me.”
They laughed, and Sherry followed Shawna’s long ponytail down the hall into a large kitchen with pine cabinets and marble countertops.
“Hey there.” Talia, Shawna’s best friend, hopped down from a barstool at the island. She was petite, dark-skinned, with a regal bearing and thick, long hair braided and styled in a cute updo. She’d come across as cool and aloof when they originally met, but now that she knew her better, Sherry suspected that had simply been shyness.
“Are the kids already gone?” Sherry asked, pouting her disappointment.
Both Shawna and Talia were in their thirties and married with five children between them. Shawna had two boys and a girl, and Talia had one boy and one girl. Their husbands had agreed to take the kids for the afternoon, which allowed the three of them to indulge in doughnuts and girl talk for a few hours.
“You just missed them. Stay for dinner, and you’ll get to see them,” Shawna said.
“I might do that,” Sherry replied.
Shawna set small plates on the counter for each of them. “Catch us up on everything that’s been going on. Was Stan even better in person than on the phone?”
Sherry sat on a stool next to Talia. “Um, not so much. The date was good and bad.”
“Uh-oh,” Talia murmured.
“Stan never showed.”
Her friends gasped.
“He stood you up?” Shawna asked.
Sherry nodded, sliding a plate of Oreo-covered doughnut to her side of the counter and picking up a fork. “Yes, but that wasn’t necessarily all bad. Don’t get me wrong, it was awful to get stood up. I was embarrassed but fully intended on having dinner alone. Then I ran into someone from my office and we ended up eating together.”
“Okay, this sounds very interesting.” Talia ate her Nutella-covered doughnut with her fingers, watching Sherry closely.
“You know who he is. I’ve talked about him ad nauseam,” Sherry said.
Talia frowned at first, then her eyes lit up. “Wait a minute, the Colombian? Your boss, Alex?”
“Hmm. This sounds like it might get interesting,” Shawna said.
Both she and Talia knew about Sherry’s attraction to Alex, and they knew how guilty she felt about being in a relationship while longing for another man.
“Yes, I had dinner with my boss, Alex.”
“How did that go? What happened?” Talia forgot all about her food and focused her attention on Sherry.
“We talked for hours. We shut the restaurant down, and then…”
“And then…” Shawna leaned closer, over the counter.
“We spent the night in a hotel.” Sherry hid her face as squeals erupted in the kitchen. “That wasn’t the only time,” she went on. “We hooked up at work—which I never, ever thought I’d do. And last night he came to my house. We had dinner and hooked up again.”
“Youfinallysnagged him after crushing on him and wondering if he was interested or not,” Talia said.
“Sounds like he wasveryinterested,” Shawna said.
The three of them laughed again, but then Sherry fell silent.
“What’s wrong? What’s that look about?” Shawna asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to overthink this.”
“I’m the queen of overthinking. What’s going through your mind?”
