CHAPTER 20 BOWER #2
“Don’t overthink it,” is all he says as he sits up and then helps me off him gently.
As he stands, he takes my hand with him and pulls me to my feet.
Then he brings me into a hug, where he kisses the top of my head.
My mind’s racing, my feelings are pulsing, my regret so heavy, but my need to do it again even heavier.
When he pulls away, he smirks at me and says, “Catch you later, Bower.”
Catch you later?
Wait…
That’s it?
He doesn’t want to talk about it?
He doesn’t want to deconstruct it at all?
Possibly make a pact to never do it again or never to speak of it to Gabby?
No, instead, he heads toward my door, leaving me perplexed and satisfied at the same time. When I glance down at the ground, I see his discarded jacket, so I call out to him, “Bennett, wait.”
He looks over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
“Your jacket.”
He smiles, his handsome face nearly splitting me in half as he says, “It’s yours now, beautiful.”
Then he takes off, the door to my apartment shutting behind him.
I plop down on my couch and push my hands through my hair. “What the hell did I just do?”
“What on earth are you doing here?” Adalade asks as she comes into her kitchen, where I’m making a batch of her favorite blueberry crumble muffins.
“Just working,” I say, mixing the batter by hand, feeling insane while I do it because I’m attempting to mix away the fear building inside of me.
Because I did something bad last night.
Very bad.
So bad that I don’t think it’s forgivable.
“I told you to take the day off.”
I shake my head. “Didn’t want it. Thought it would be better to come in and work, because work is what makes this country function, right? We need everyone to work and when everyone works then we have a stable economy and a stable economy means good things and good things means—”
“What happened?” Adalade says, pressing her hand to my arm, stopping me from overmixing the batter.
“What do you mean? Nothing happened.” I try to smile, but it feels more like my teeth are trying to pop past my mouth with a massive underbite.
“Sweetie.” She gently takes the bowl from me and sets it down on the counter. “Something happened, because I can see the panic in your eyes.”
“You can?” I ask, scared now that I won’t be able to mask this feeling if Gabby calls, and I can only miss a few of her calls before she starts to worry.
“Yes, I can, so tell me what happened.”
“Nothing…nothing happened.” I shrug, the truth eating away at me.
“Now, Bower, I’ve known you for a long enough time to know when you’re lying, and I’d appreciate it, as your boss, if you wouldn’t lie to me. You don’t want to form distrust between us, do you?”
“No,” I say, guilt consuming me.
“Then I’m only going to ask one more time. What happened?”
I let out a large sigh and then word vomit all over her, because she asked for it, and she’s right, I can’t lie.
“Oh my God, Adalade, I’m so fucked, like majorly fucked, and I don’t know what I’m going to do about it because I could lose my friendship and I don’t want to lose my friendship, but oh my God, I can’t stop thinking about it, about him and the way it felt and I want more, but I know I shouldn’t have more, and I just think it’s because I’m horny, not because I like him or anything like that.
At least I don’t think I like him, even though he’s sweet and kind, and handsome and has the best fucking body I’ve ever seen, but I don’t like him, but I lost control last night and oh my God, I dry-humped him.
” I nod. “Yes, you heard that right, I dry-humped him, on the floor of my apartment, just humping my life away, clothes and all, no shame. Nope, there I was, on top of him, grinding against his dick, tearing his shirt open—” My hands go to my mouth.
“Oh my God, that’s right, I tore his shirt open, like he was the main event of a Magic Mike show.
Oh my God, what is wrong with me? Maybe the romance novels are getting to my brain and I thought it was appropriate to just dry-hump a man on the floor of my apartment without any thought or care.
And I haven’t heard from him, even though he texted this morning, so I guess I did hear from him, but I didn’t read it, okay, I did, he said good morning, but I didn’t respond, okay, I might have.
I sent a heart emoji because I didn’t know what else to say, but he didn’t respond to that and now I’m here and I don’t know what to do. ”
I take that moment to slide down the face of the cabinet until my butt hits the floor.
“Well.” Adalade clears her throat. “That was a lot to take in.”
“You shouldn’t have asked.”
“No, no. I’m glad I did.” She motions for me to stand. “Come sit down, as I’m not about to have this chat on the floor.”
I follow her over to the kitchen table and we both take a seat, me slouching, her poised like the posh socialite she is.
“Now, when you say ‘he’ and ‘him,’ are you speaking of Bennett or someone else?”
“Bennett,” I groan, hating that I even have to say that out loud.
“I see, and remind me why this is a problem? Because everyone loved you two together last night. We thought you were so adorable.”
“It’s a problem because he’s my best friend’s little brother, eight years little, Adalade, and I promised her that I’d always protect him, and dry-humping him on my living room floor is not protecting him.
That’s taking advantage.” My hand goes to my forehead.
“Oh my God, I took advantage of someone younger than me. I should be put in jail.”
“My goodness, Bower, get a hold of yourself. If he’s eight years younger, that makes him twenty-four, a very acceptable age to be dry-humping.”
“Do you know what’s not acceptable? Dry-humping your best friend’s brother. That is not acceptable in any way.”
“I don’t see an issue with it.”
“Adalade,” I groan. “It’s so bad. Like…really, really bad. She will lose her mind if she finds out.”
“Are you going to tell her?”