Page 61 of Single Girl in the City
“It is?” she croaked.
“Cut the crap, Abi,” Nora said. “How long have you two been boinking?”
Abi laughed but Nora stood there serious as hell.
“We’re not ‘boinking.’”
“Well, you’re something. When you two are together there’s so much sexual tension it makes me want to reach out and touch someone. Like my ex who was terrible at monogamy but a god in bed.” Nora hung the board from the screws and stepped back to admire their handiwork.
“He’s that good?”
Nora fanned herself. “Religious experience.”
The last man-made orgasm Abi’d had was, um, never. She didn’t know if she picked lazy men or if it was her. Looking at Nora with her piercings and tattoos, Abi decided her friend looked like a woman who demanded her orgasms.
Abi hadn’t demanded much out of men except attention. And maybe a date night every so often. Just by his kiss Abi could tell that Owen would be a ladies-first kind of guy, who’d be single-focused, not giving in until Abi had experienced her first with-someone orgasms.
Her nipples chimed in, reconfirming just how mind-blowing sex with Owen would be. What if this was her wake-up call? The universe telling her to grab the bull by the horns? To walk away from something great in hopes of finding something amazing.
“So then what’s going on between you and Owen?”
“Honestly? Nothing. A big, fat almost-but-not-quite nothing. He has this boss-employee line he won’t cross, which I think is smart and noble, but it’s confusing as hell.”
Nora pulled a chocolate bar from her lunch bag, broke off half and offered it to Abi, who snatched it right up.
“He learned a hard lesson that made him a by-the-book kind of boss. I heard he used to date one of his employees and she cheated on him and lied about it. She broke his heart and he walked away from his tattoo business over it.”
“That’s awful,” Abi said, getting a clearer picture into Owen Easton. “I had no idea.”
Now she understood why honesty and loyalty were so ingrained in him. It’s normal for business owners to be wary about being taken advantage of, but Owen had been betrayed by someone he loved.
“So he didn’t always live for work?” she asked, hoping beyond hope that maybe her decade-old decision hadn’t had as much of an impact as she’d originally thought.
“I don’t know. I’ve been here three years and the guy’s always buried himself so deep in work he had paper coming out his ass.”
“He’s not that bad.”
Nora laughed. “But you’re not sleeping together?”
“No.”
Abi opened her mouth to say more but decided to close it. While she knew his reason, she felt in her gut that there was more to his decision. Her endgame was clear: until she came clean, she wouldn’t allow things to progress any further. She hadn’t sold alcohol to minors, but she still held herself responsible for part of the event that changed Owen’s dad’s life.
Abi’s body tingled every time she thought about his promise on Dotti’s porch. How absolute he’d been in their one-week policy. Only now that it was almost here, a week didn’t seem enough. Her heart was saying that it would never be enough and that if she wasn’t careful when she left, she’d leave it behind. So while she wanted more, she knew better than to ask.
“We’re just friends.”
Nora snorted. “Uh huh.”
When Nora disappeared, Abi moved on to her first good deed for the day. A good deed for the universe.
She pulled the ladder from the closet and shimmied it to the middle of the room, where she set up shop. She’d spent the entire afternoon yesterday double-checking that all sixty-three light bulbs around the bar had been replaced with eco-friendly ones. All that was left was the breakroom.
Using her servers’ apron as a tool belt, she filled up with supplies and started up the ladder. And by up, she meant climbing a single rung.
Ten minutes later, she’d made it to the impressive rung number three. With the light fixture closely overhead, an eco-friendly light bulb in one hand and imaginary prayer beads in the other, she pushed onward and upward.
Onward and upward.
