Page 21 of Mostly My Girlfriend
“Fine. My friend, as well. But you’re not…I mean…you’re not my…boyfriend…lover…whatever. Is what I’m trying to say.”
Awkwardly. Really awkwardly.
He looked at me then and his face was so serious. Serious in a way I didn’t get from him very often.
“If we had to do it…for our child, I would. There would be purpose behind it. A reason. It would be okay for us to have sex under those conditions.”
I’m certain my mouth was open. In the history of our relationship, he’d never once mentioned having sex with me. In college, he’d forbidden me to even discuss it. And thanks to an ungodly amount of Guinness beer he didn’t remember the one and only time we had done it.
The only time we’d ever kissed.
“I don’t want to have sex with you!”
He smirked then. Like he knew I was lying but couldn’t call me out for it because then we’d be talking about us having sex.
And Ethan and I did not talk about having sex. Ever.
He walked over to where I stood, a little too close for me to be comfortable but I wasn’t backing away from him. Ethan wasn’t someone you could show weakness to without him taking advantage of it.
“Think about it, Jules. We’d make a great kid.”
Pain lodged in my chest. I acknowledged it then I pushed it aside. Into the space I’d made for all the things Ethan did and said that hurt me but shouldn’t. Not if he was just my boss. Just my friend.
“You brought me out here to convince me to build airplanes, not talk about babies. So start talking, Mr. Moss.”
He frowned as if he wasn’t going to let me off the hook quite so easily, but he must have seen something in my face. Something that told him to back the fuck up. Because he did.
“Not airplanes, Jules. Jets. The fastest, most efficient jets in the world. And our own airline to fly them.”
* * *
Therapy
Julia
“You knew,” I whispered. Hit with the memory of him looking at me and knowing, even when I said I didn’t want to have sex with him, that I was lying. “This whole time you’ve known... This is so humiliating.”
“Why was that humiliating for you, Julia?” Carol asked.
“Because it was one-sided,” I said angrily. “Which meant we were never really equals. Which, of course, I knew. You were always the boss, but this…this just pisses me off even more.”
“But he told you yesterday that it wasn’t one-sided,” Carol pointed out. “That he’s in love with you.”
I shook my head. Those words didn’t make sense to me. Not after all this time. Not when he could have changed us whenever he wanted, because he’d known how I felt. Knew that I would crumble at his feet if he so much as crooked his finger at me.
No, this was Ethan running scared. Scared of losing me because he’d just lost his father.
“I don’t believe him. I don’t think that this whole time he’s harbored these feelings for me and just chose not to act on them. Sorry, Ethan, but you don’t have that much self-control.”
The jab landed squarely where I wanted it to and I watched the anger flare in his eyes.
“Did you know?” I asked him, feeling again that sick twist of hurt that I normally kept in its nice, safe spot well up again. “Every time you hooked up with some tall, hot model, did you know that it hurt me?”
“No,” he grumbled. “Because you never reacted. It was like Nicki all over again. I told myself dating those women helped to keep the distance between us. But if you want the truth, then yes, I wanted you to be jealous, too. I wanted to know if I could hurt you, but I didn’t think I ever had. I thought you didn’t care enough. That you were beyond petty jealousy. Unlike me.”
I snorted, not exactly happy to be right. “Yeah, let’s tell Carol about that. Let’s tell her how you basically tried to sabotage any relationship I’ve ever had. How about that one time when you made us go out on a double date?!”
He had the decency to look sheepish.
