Chapter 12 Kat #2
The lower octave of his voice makes me finally look at him. Fuck, this is going to be harder than I thought. His eyes are hungry. His face is flushed. Which means I’m going to sit my happy ass on the other side of the hot tub…far away from the man, and the cock, that makes me stupid.
“Did you hear the news?” I ask.
He nods. “Flights canceled. Roads closed too.”
“I figured as much,” I say. “Looks like we’re here for a few days.”
“Looks like it.”
I hate the awkward silence that now lives between us. The best part of Grayson and I, and why I was so excited to explore whatever this was between us, was the banter. How we could make each other laugh. How topics flowed freely, and it was as easy as breathing.
Now I feel suffocated. But I need to push through it. If my friend-zone plan is going to work, we need to get over the awkward. Start now.
“I didn’t know where you were when I got back to the room,” I say.
My topic of conversation is fine enough, but does he really have to be sitting, arms spread wide, with his hair wet?
He’d really help me out right now if he just said something that was a screaming red flag.
Crypto. Showing me fishing pictures. Mansplaining literally anything. I’ll take a crumb at this point.
“A soak sounded nice,” he says. “Since this is now my vacation, I figured I’d make the most of it.”
“I figured it was because you had a crick in the neck from the cot.”
He laughs. “Well, that too.”
“I’ll take it tonight,” I offer up. “No reason for you to be the only one to suffer.”
“No,” he protests. “It’s your room. You’re not sleeping on the cot.”
“I insist.” I pause for a second, trying to figure out what I want to say next. I definitely want to get away from bed talk. “You’re stuck here instead of going home. The least I can do is give you a real bed to sleep on.”
He laughs. “Strangely enough, if I had to pick between the cot or two days of family time, the cot wins hands down.”
That takes me by surprise. “That bad?”
He shakes his head as he repositions himself in the hot tub. I should get a medal for not staring at his defined chest while he does it.
“My family is…complicated.”
“How so?”
I don’t know if prying into personal family stories is the move here, but at least the silence isn’t deafening, and for now, I’m not picturing myself sitting on his lap.
“I’m the black sheep of the family. Makes the holidays a little uncomfortable.”
“Black sheep? Wait, did you leave your small town in Connecticut and the family’s Christmas tree farm for the big city and the big corporate job? Because if you did, I saw a movie about that once.”
The joke does its job of breaking the tension. “I saw it too. But unfortunately, that’s not the one I star in.”
I want him to finish telling me the story, but I need to rewind back.
“You watch cheesy Christmas movies?”
“Of course,” he says. “Well, except for the ones with that one actress. What’s her name…”
I know it, but I refuse to say it. “I know who you’re talking about. Fuck her.”
“Exactly.”
We share a laugh and a smile, because that’s all we know how to do, even when I’m trying to do the exact opposite. I hate that the conversation is so effortless. That we go from complicated families to cheesy television movies and bad-take actresses without skipping a beat.
This. This is what I always wanted in a partner. A guy who I could talk to like a best friend. A friend who I just so happen to want to rip his clothes off. Someone who matches my vibe while also making me yearn for them when they aren’t around.
Too bad I found it in the guy I can’t let myself have.
“I fell in love with public relations and media when I was in high school,” I say. “I don’t even remember where I read about it, or what piqued my interest, but once I discovered it, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”
“And being a six-figure publicist isn’t good enough for your family? Remind me to call my mom and thank her for not batting an eyelash at my career choice.”
I meant it as a joke, but he doesn’t laugh. “I didn’t follow in the family footsteps. So because I don’t have a ’JD’ at the end of my name, I am forever the outcast.”
“A family full of lawyers? How many are we talking here?”
“Currently practicing? Seven. A few are still in college. Another four retired, who at one time practiced under the flag.”
“And then there’s you.”
He nods. “And then there’s me, putting out statements that it wasn’t my client who flashed her boobs on the roof patio before trying to fight a bachelorette.”
“I remember that story!” I say. “I didn’t know it was you behind the PR. You handled it beautifully.”
“Thanks,” he says. “Once I got her to get her story straight, that is.”
I laugh, and can relate. “But she did it, right? She did the flashing and the fighting?”
He nods and lets out a laugh. “Oh, she did it. She very much did it.”
“See, I think that’s more impressive than being a lawyer.
Sure you have to pass a few tests and know when to scream words like ‘objection!’ at the right time, but it takes a special skill to be able to get a diva to admit her wrongdoings, without really admitting it, and apologizing in just a way that seems sincere even though she was rolling her eyes while you were writing it for her. ”
Grayson’s smile is so pure it hits me square in my heart. “You get it.”
“Comes with the job.”
The silence is back, but the awkwardness is gone. Thank goodness. Except replacing that is the overwhelming desire to float to his side of the hot tub, sit between his legs, and let him hold me tight as we lose all sense of time.
How did I think this was a good idea? Trying to get him out of my system by putting him in the friend zone was great in theory, but the execution is clearly failing.
Though what did I expect? That one night of small talk was going to make me not like him anymore?
That just separating myself from him wasn’t going to make me want him?
For a smart woman, sometimes I’m dumb as hell.
I need to leave. Get out of here while I still can. Before I do something stupid like kiss him.
“I’m going to get going,” I say as I move off the wall where the jet was hitting my lower back just right.
“You just got here.”
“I know,” I quickly say as I stand up. “But this way I’ll get in and out of the shower first, so you can have the bathroom. And I haven’t eaten. Stomach is growling. You know how that goes. It’s just…ACK!”
This is what I get for trying to move quickly in a tub full of water.
Because one minute I’m standing up, talking a mile a minute and trying to make my exit, and then the next I’m losing my footing and about to fall back, ass first, into the water.
My arms are flailing. I can’t seem to get my balance.
And just when I think I’m about to make a Shamu-level splash, I feel arms under me, stopping me from my fall.
“Easy there, Vixen,” Grayson says, holding me still as I catch my breath. “I got you.”
Dammit, he does. He really does. In so many ways.
Gradually he lifts me up, and I slowly turn around to face him. He doesn’t move his hands from my arms, which could be passed off for him making sure that I have my balance. Secretly, and selfishly, I hope it’s not.
I hope it’s because he wants to touch me. Because I want him to. More than that, I want to kiss him. I want him to kiss me. It could happen so easily right now. We’re inches away from each other. Our chests are touching, and I can feel every breath he takes. Our eyes are saying the same things.
We want this. We want each other. We want this moment—right here, right now.
God, I want to give in. I want to say fuck my rules and fuck every wall I’ve built over the years to protect myself.
But I don’t. I can’t. I know what will happen when this goes bad. When our careers get in the way. That heartbreak will be worse then than it will be now.
Which is why I do the one thing my body is screaming at me not to do—I get out of the hot tub, and I walk away.