Jocelyn
Sex is not a replacement for real emotion.
—My Therapist
Lying beside me in his bed, eyes closed, my date is pretty pleased with himself, but annoyance has grappled tenterhooks into me. Why can’t these men get me off? It’s not
that hard. All my recent hookups have been total duds.
This one is cute. Blond. Super tall. Like, freakishly tall. Looks like he should be good in bed.
He isn’t.
While he catches his breath, a goofy smile on his face, my hand slips between my legs. His frisky voice rumbles near my ear.
“You want some more?”
I ignore him but accept his help down below since I deserve it. My eyes fall shut, blotting out the view of him and his messy
bedroom.
Behind my eyelids, a face that doesn’t belong creeps up.
Why am I alone?
Argh. Not again.
This is unacceptable. Asher can’t be here. Not when I’m doing this. But every time I’ve attempted an orgasm since our heart-to-heart on the phone last week, Asher’s face has snuck into my
mind.
I think his vulnerability flipped a switch in my genetics or something. His loneliness and uncertainties, his openness and
sincerity . . . It all unlocked a secret empathy level in my heart, like an Easter egg in a video game.
He thinks no one takes him seriously.
He thinks his patients don’t trust him.
He thinks women find him expendable.
I am flabbergasted, and something possessive has taken flight inside me. How can he not see how wonderful he is? Perhaps the
stodgy old surgeons at the hospital don’t give him a second glance, but who cares about them?
And if women don’t want him, then they are fucking blind as that elderly nurse with the inch-thick glasses in the ER who refuses
to retire. This is the one part I simply cannot fathom.
Just . . . how?
He is so easy to love! I’m a self-inflicted emotionless shell of a person, and he still found a way to creep inside and become
my best friend. How is that not tangible proof of his lovability?
I have seen the way women want him with my own 20/20 eyes. Asher has surely confirmation-biased his way into a complex that doesn’t exist.
And now I’m fatally damaged because learning all this has messed with my mind. I don’t know why I can’t get him out of my
head, why these strange fantasies are cropping up like weeds.
I’ve wondered before, yes. Idle meanderings that don’t mean anything. What his lips feel like. How his hands would touch me. The places he’d linger as he undressed me. Asher is kind. Caring. I’m certain he takes care of his partners in bed.
Not like this guy.
But this is more than wondering. This is fantasizing. This is straight up illicit indulgence.
It’s like I’ve opened my wrists, and I’m bleeding out control and sanity as an offering, all while reaching for Asher’s strong
hand.
What is wrong with me?
I don’t know what brought it on or how to make it stop.
But it’s thoughts of him that allow the ecstasy to blossom down below, and what do I do with that? I can’t tell him. I can’t act on it. I can’t force
it away.
I’m stuck in the Here And There, weirded out and uncertain, surrounded in so many shades of gray, I’m practically Anastasia
Steele.
Without the . . . like . . . bondage stuff.
One thing I know for certain: If my friendship with Asher is going to survive, it has to stop.
He smells like a sexy forest.
Can forests be sexy? Because this one is.
Even with the chlorine of the pool water obscuring the scent, it’s still reaching deep inside me, yanking want to the surface
like it’s pulling up daisies. I try to relax on my lounger beside the pool, but every muscle is tensed, and sweat that has
very little to do with the sun gathers in every crease.
“What are you doing?” Asher asks, settling on the lounger beside mine.
I jerk my attention from his abs to find him studying me, brows scrunched. It isn’t the first time this Pool Party Saturday that I’ve caught myself staring, but it is the first time he’s caught me staring.
It took him three weeks. Three weeks of a strict diet and focused workouts to redefine the pretty muscles that are always
there but have never held me quite so captivated. Reclining on a lounge chair in the summer sun, glistening from the pool
water still drying on his skin, he is a god.
It’s a problem. My own personal problem, but still.
I lean closer. “You are obscene.”
He looks at himself and flicks away an invisible speck near his belly button. “Why?”
“Put some clothes on.”
He lifts a brow. “You put some clothes on.”
I glance at my tie-dye bikini and shake my head. “I don’t need to. No one is staring at me.”
He sits up and spins so he’s facing my chair. “No one is staring at me, either. No one except you.”
“That entire table of residents is ogling you.”
A mixture of confusion and suspicion wrinkles his brow. “Is something wrong, sunshine?”
I try to snort, but it sounds more like a painful cough. The sun’s blistering rays strangle me. “No.”
“You sure? Because it sounds like you’re jealous, and we both know that can’t be true.”
An awkward laugh erupts from my chest. What is even happening right now? The residents always look at him. Always want him.
That’s not new, and I’m not jealous. At least . . . I don’t think I am.
I’m uncomfortable. Because he is excruciatingly hot.
I’ve known this as fact for years. His hotness hasn’t changed, so I definitely have. Why is this weird desire rearing its head now? My blood shimmers. Simmers. Fire concentrates deep in places Asher doesn’t belong.
This is Asher!
He sprinkles whey protein on his breakfast. He has a tiny tattoo of a stick figure jumping on a trampoline on his shoulder
because I thought it would be hilarious!
He’s my best friend.
Why have I forgotten this?
It’s just empathy. It has to be. My body is urging me to give comfort to this man who so desperately needs it. Yes. Definitely.
Let’s go with that.
Meanwhile, something tugs in my chest. Something not altogether comfortable.
I clear my throat. “I don’t like them looking at you like you’re . . . an object.”
A slow, lopsided smile turns his face into some sort of masterpiece that’s hard to look at straight on. “Are you feeling protective, Jossy Poo?”
“Ugh. What do you expect after you opened up to me the other day? Don’t make this a thing, Asher, or I will embarrass the
shit out of you.”
“I don’t think you will.” He grins wide and points at my chest. “I think you’re growing a heart three sizes too small in there.”
I narrow my eyes, hoping I shoot off danger vibes like sparks, then make my voice just a shade too loud. “You’re the one who
was in tears at work the other day, pouting that you’re all al—”
He attacks me, half landing on my lounger to smother his hand over my mouth. “Okay, I believe you’ll embarrass me. I’ll stop
if you stop.”
I gaze up into his eyes as he leans over me.
His leg presses into mine, and the hand that isn’t clamped over my mouth is braced next to my head.
Pool water clings to his eyelashes, making them knot together and darken like pen strokes.
The green in his eyes is darker today, and that sexy forest scent lurches toward me in a forbidden miasma.
My heart thumps hard, robbing me of breath. I can’t be sexually attracted to this man. Throwing sex into the mix might uproot
all the sticky feelings I’m not willing to feel. I already love him too hard as a friend. Any further attachment is not allowed.
In the space of one second, I imagine the pain of losing him, of getting that call that he’d been in an accident and didn’t
make it. My skin goes cold. Would I survive that? It’s already overwhelming. How would I cope if we were more?
And besides, to him, I’m just his emotionally challenged best friend, anti-relationship because I haven’t discovered the healing
power of love. Who says he’d even be interested in anything more?
So I nod under his hand, and he backs off, settling once again on his lounger.
“Truce,” he says.
“Truce,” I agree. “But real talk—the way they look at you is making me salty.”
He closes his eyes. “All I’m hearing is that my abs are no longer soft. Just in time for Florida next month. Go me.”
I huff. “You’re not going to be shirtless at the wedding, Asher.”
He smiles without opening his eyes, a dangerous edge sharpening the curve. “You don’t know that.”
“I hate you.”
“Yo, Foley!” shouts a voice from the covered porch.
Asher turns toward Geoff, shading his eyes. “What’s up?”
“Where’s your remote, man? I can’t get the TV to work.”
Asher heads toward the porch, and Yayoi falls into the lounger he vacated. “Well, my pregnancy test this morning was negative.”
I slide my sunglasses on, willing my heart to behave. “Bummer.”
“Right?” She takes an obvious gulp of her White Claw—not pineapple since I hid those. “Like, what’s the point of all the sex?”
“I mean . . . it’s fun, right?”
She scoffs. “I guess. Yes. Yeah, okay? It’s fun. But also . . . I want a frickin’ baby.”
“Is he a good lay? I assume so, since you married him, but I need a story to live vicariously through. My last couple dates
have been . . . not great.”
Yayoi gives me a commiserating smile. “What’s wrong with your dates?”
“They’re boring.” I pseudo-shudder. “It’s like a chore instead of fun. Used to be kind of exciting, you know? The stranger
aspect.”
She looks at me like she’s trying to decode me. “And now the stranger aspect . . . isn’t exciting?”
I shut my eyes beneath my sunglasses. “That’s not what I mean. It’s annoying having to show someone what I like every time.”
“Sounds like you want a boyfriend.”
Without looking, I wave a dramatic hand in her direction. “Don’t be extra. I just want someone who knows his way around a
clit.”
“Men are like dogs. You have to train them. If you don’t, they wind up jamming their face in your crotch as soon as you walk
through the door, then hump your leg for a minute and fall asleep.”
Imagining Geoff humping Yayoi’s leg, I drop into a bucket of giggles. “Gross.”
“Exactly.”
I turn on my side to face her. “How’s everything else? Any more annoying daughters ruining photoshoots for you?”
“The last shoot I did was senior photos. She was super cute.” Yayoi runs to grab her phone, then shows me a few stills of
the girl.
Her photos are agonizingly pretty. They make me want to crawl inside them. I long to walk through that meadow, bask in that
sunlight and be as carefree as that girl. Yayoi’s able to tug at my cold, dead heart.
“Yayoi, you are so talented.”
“It’s nothing.” She shrugs, all humble like the beauty she can create with a camera and a little glitzy magic doesn’t matter.
“Own it, girl. This is genius. Someday, I want to be photographed to look this good.”
“Okay!” She bounces in her seat. “I need some updated photos for my website. Will you model for me?”
“Sure. My sister is coming soon. Maybe you could do some sister shots?”
“Yes!”
Asher returns with his sexy forest scent and perches at the end of my lounger. “Ooh. Are we getting free pictures? I want
in. You make everyone look like supermodels.”
Yayoi perks up even more. “Really? Could I do pretend engagement photos with you guys? I want in that game so bad. From there,
it’s only a stepping stone to full weddings.”
Pretend engagement photos?
Asher and I exchange a stilted glance.
“Uh . . .” I say at the same time Asher blurts out, “Suuure?”
Yayoi throws her hands in the air. “Yes!” She turns toward the deck. “Geoff! Ash and Joss are going to pretend to be engaged for me.”
He makes the touchdown sign. “One step closer to weddings! Get it, girl.”
She grins at us. “I love him.”
I laugh, but deep inside my protective walls, my soul writhes, certain I’ve agreed to something that might have disastrous
consequences. That weird discomfort in my chest tugs again.
But it’s just pretend. It won’t take more than an hour. I can pretend to be in love with Asher for an hour. NBD. Seriously.
No.
Big.
Deal.