Page 37 of Besties
“Bullshit! What did you end up doing?”
This time I had to sigh. “Of the seven calls I made, four of them gave us another chance. Two said no and wouldn’t even talk to me, and the last one said they’d have to think it over.”
“Fuck.” He slammed a hand on the table. “How could I not know?” His shoulders sagged as though someone had dropped the weight of the world on them.
“This isn’t on you, so stop thinking it is.”
He looked up, gave me a watery smile, then told me, “Yeah, it is. This is my company. I started it in the basement of my house. No, I started it in the basement of my mother’s house when I was a kid.” He gave me a shy smile. “You inspired that.”
That shocked me. “Me?”
He nodded. “When we sat in your room studying, I found my purpose in life. Ilovedworking with you. Those ‘aha’ moments? The ones when your eyes lit up as you figured something out? Better than anything else I ever experienced. Julie didn’t understand why it meant so much to me. She was so freaking jealous of you.”
“Jealous of me?” I had to be sure I heard him right. “Why in the hell would she be?”
“Oh, what were her words again? Something like, ‘You go out with me, but you only talk about him’ or ‘Sometimes I think you’d be happier if he was with you.’ And the sad thing? I really would have.”
“But the two of you were dating?”
He scrunched his face. “Is that what it was? I thought we were just friends who shared an interest and were out having a good time.”
And the next words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. “I thought the two of you were sleeping together.”
He blinked, then blinked again. “Us? Okay, I admit, we did twice. The first time was a bunch of fumbling around, trying to figure out what the hell we were doing. The second time was… well, a bunch of fumbling around trying to figure out what the hell we were doing. After that, we agreed that we were better off as friends, and it never happened again.” He gave an evil grin. “Were you jealous of her?”
“Yeah, I was.” Why deny it? “You might not see it, but when I look at you, there’s a guy with an enormous amount of sexy. He’s cool, confident, and knows what he wants from life.”
His eyes crinkled in the corners as he gifted me with a smile. “There’s only been one thing I’ve ever wanted in my life, and that’s you. As for being confident? Where you were concerned, there was no such thing. I tried more than once to tell you how I felt, except it all came out as gibberish. By the time I found my balls, you were either with someone or had just broken up with someone. Your mom kept telling me that unless I said something, I’d never have a chance with you. This time I promised myself I would. Jesse—”
“Is gone. I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”
“Good, neither do I. What I do want is to go out to dinner, then go home. I already told Rebecca I was staying with you. She’s happy about it.”
“Is there anyone who doesn’t know how you felt?”
He turned his eyes toward the ceiling. “I don’t think Mr. Reynolds knows. He’s the eighty-year-old security guard who sits in the office all night, chugging coffee, and watching porn on his laptop.”
“Wait. There are actually jobs like that? Where do I apply?”
He reached out and cupped my cheek, his gaze soft, almost reverent. “If that’s what you want to do, the job is yours.”
This was going to take getting used to. Knowing that when Richie looked at me, he was seeing me, but there were feelings and emotions attached as well. No one I ever was with saw me the way he could. “C’mon, let’s go. We need food and rest. Tomorrow we’re going to see about putting things to right.”
He chuckled. “Isn’t that what I was supposed to be helping you with?”
And he had. More than he’d ever know. “It’s my turn now.”
Though my thoughts were more on what was going to happen when it was time for me to go back to Milwaukee.
Chapter10
I lay back,my arms folded behind my head, and drunk in the sight of Richie. Fuck, he was a sexy man. “Take off your shirt.”
My voice was husky, filled with heat and desire. Damn, but I’d waited almost my whole life for this moment. The thought of Richie, of being able to finally touch him, had me achingly hard since dinner.
He slipped the shirt off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. He was a big man, but there wasn’t a thing about him that didn’t turn me on. From his barrel chest to his rounded stomach, it was like I was a starving man who was plopped down in front of a buffet. And I intended to have all I could eat.
“Unsnap your pants.”
