Chapter 12
TWELVE
COLBY
Is it a little odd sitting on the couch, in nearly the same position as last night before I ravished Josie like some starving feral animal, to now be talking about the regret we feel from what we did?
Most definitely. But here we are, two fresh mugs of coffee wrapped in our palms, a box of Honey Nut Cheerios resting in between us that we’re digging into like a bag of chips, and an unbearable, weighty silence that I could chop with my axe.
The regret is so heavy in my body, as heavy as the snow that’s coming down outside.
A fierce tug-of-war of emotions starts inside me.
This sickening feeling that I used Josie, this anger at myself for my impulsive decision, this softness I’m feeling by looking at Josie wearing my clothes.
It’s all too much and I need a moment alone to process.
Which looks like it won’t be happening anytime soon.
I’ve never seen Josie in anything besides scrubs and thank God she didn’t say she was fine to prance around here in nothing but a sports bra and tiny shorts that accentuated her perfectly round ass.
Ugh. This is not right. Josie is my friend.
And I absolutely want to be nothing more than friends—with anyone—and thus, I need to stop thinking of the way she felt on my fingers last night.
“Josie,” I say, clearing the anxiety from my throat. “I’m not looking for a relationship. Like at all. And I knew that last night when we did… what we did. And I should have said it upfront, right away, and not given you any sort of wrong impression that my feelings run deeper than friendship.”
Josie’s warm brown eyes peek at me over the mug, and she shakes her head. “Okay, this is what I’m talking about. Where there is an obvious disconnect.” She tucks a leg under herself and sighs. “Can I ask you a super personal question?”
“I think we’re past needing to ask permission,” I say. “Please. Ask away.”
“When was the last time you had casual sex? Like with someone you weren’t in a relationship with?”
Kona hobbles over to us from where she was resting and nestles at my feet.
I rub the top of her fur and think back to when I was in my late teens, and early twenties.
“Oh gosh. I don’t know. Fifteen years ago, at least. Before I met Amelia,” I say.
“I’ve only had casual sex with maybe two or three women at most.”
Rose tattoos peek out when Josie tugs up the sleeve of the sweatshirt.
“That’s what I thought—that you haven’t been with anyone since your wife.
Last night when we were talking, and you told me everything about what happened with your wife…
you were so emotionally vulnerable, and open, and trusting and ugh… Fuck, Colby, this is what I do.”
Huh? I feel my brows crease. Sure, I was in an emotionally vulnerable spot last night. I haven’t talked about Amelia to anyone in years. I was raw, and exhausted, and needed to forget, but I absolutely knew what I was doing. “We didn’t do anything that I didn’t want to do.”
Josie reaches into the cereal and palms a handful of Cheerios.
She stares at her hands, then takes a breath.
“You’re not looking for a relationship. And honestly, neither am I.
In fact, a few months ago I enforced a relationship hard stop for myself.
But… this is my pattern, and I’m so angry at myself for doing this to you. ”
I still don’t grasp what she’s saying. But when I open my mouth to protest, she puts her hands up.
“One sec. Let me finish.” She crunches through a few bites of the dry cereal and washes it back with coffee.
“So, you haven’t had casual sex in all those years.
And you know exactly what you want, which is to stay single.
But me… Ever since Zoey and I broke up, I fall headfirst, hard, madly in love, in a snap.
I’m Queen Insta-love, and I know it and I hate it.
It’s like this twisted, sick, never-ending cycle and I’ve been trying to get out of it. ”
As Josie talks, my heart breaks a little bit for her.
She tells me that she’s been searching for something, something that’s unnamed and out of reach, and she keeps thinking every woman she is with is “the one.” She talks about looking for distractions, everywhere.
Working extra hours, joining clubs, trying new activities, and when she sleeps with someone, she just knows that this is it!
“And then I told myself no more, that this pattern is completely unhealthy, and I need to stop,” she says, running a hand through her pink hair. “And then the moment I’m alone with you…” She trails off.
This isn’t her fault. As we sit here and talk, I realize that none of this is either one of our faults.
We were both looking for something last night, some momentary reprieve in our lives to break the monotonous course of action, and we used sex to fulfill that need.
“First, can I just say I really appreciate you sharing all of that with me?” I say, giving her a soft smile.
“How about we both just agree that it was a mistake, and it will never happen again. Take a solid do-over?”
“A do-over. I like that,” Josie says. “Like, let’s rewind it, play back, and write an alternative ending. Matrix-style.”
I chuckle. “Not sure that The Matrix is the best movie for this analogy, but it sounds good either way.”
Josie leans in and gives me a hug. A warm, full, generous hug, and I melt into the touch.
I rest my chin on her soft rounded shoulders, feel her body pressed against me, and release this guilt choke hold that’s been with me since last night.
“I’m going to take Kona out to go to the bathroom,” I say, grabbing a scarf to wear over my coat.
“Do you need to call your work or anything?”
“Today’s my normal day off, but that’s a good idea, anyway. I should probably check in and see how people are doing with the storm. I don’t even know if they’ve managed to open.”
Outside, the visibility is next to zero, and Josie’s car rests at the edge of the turn that is buried under mounds of snow.
The wind whips against my face, covering me with a blanket of snow, and I shake everything off, but it’s useless.
Kona is taking longer than normal, probably too freaked out to go to the bathroom with how loud the howl is in the wind, and a good twenty minutes must’ve passed before I step back into the house.
And when I do, a few things happen. I don’t see Josie right away, which is a little odd since I have a completely open-plan home besides the bedroom, bathroom, and small hall. But then I hear her, on the phone with someone. There’s a whisper, then a giggle, and then another whisper.
And something very unexpected happens. A touch of surprising jealousy flickers through me, a deep curiosity in who she is talking to, and—even as relieved as I am that we’ve laid out that last night was a one-time thing—a trickle of disappointment.