Chapter 3
AJ
“So, like… how long has it been exactly?” Georgia asked as I sat on the phone with her at the bar of The Hugo, where Adam and I stayed whenever we were in town on business.
It was a gorgeous hotel on the island of Palm Beach, and the very place I’d booked Caspar his own suite—as an “early birthday gift” to make up for “not being able to be there.”
It was the perfect cover.
Since the reservation was under my name, I was able to grab my own key at check-in fifteen minutes ago, which set the plan right in motion.
Upon finishing this quick meeting with Adam, I’d do my hair and makeup in his room and then go to let myself into Caspar’s, where I’d be ready and waiting for him once he got home.
The timing was perfect, since according to Instagram, he and his crew were currently shooting at some house in West Palm Beach, and according to his texts, he planned to be back at the hotel by seven-thirty.
I couldn’t help the grin on my lips as I reread some of his cute texts from the morning.
CASPAR: All I want is to be back in that big ass bed. :) Thank you again for the room babe
CASPAR: Best fiancée ever. Miss you like crazy
I looked again at the cute selfie he sent me before taking a sip of my wine and following up on my best friend’s question of exactly how hefty a streak Caspar and I would be breaking tonight.
“Ummm, since actual sex or since sexual contact?”
“What do you mean by sexual contact?”
“Like… hand stuff? While we’re both half-asleep on the couch and mostly focused on Netflix?” I said, my entire face puckering into a shameful wince as I heard Georgia stop dead in the middle of stirring the soup she was making—basically the equivalent of me hearing her horror.
“Like, not even looking at each other, just looking at the screen?”
I covered my face with my hands, unsure if I was about to break into laughter or tears. “Yes.”
“Oh…” My best friend trailed off, sounding so genuinely upset for me that I had to cackle. “AJ. Honey,” Georgia said seriously. “How did it get that bad?”
I took a big drink of wine as my amusement wound down to a groan.
“I don’t know, he just… lifts a lot of heavy film equipment every day?
And is super tired?” I hypothesized weakly.
“And we just put so much energy into our careers. He’s busting his ass to break into the film industry and I’m dealing with Adam and these clients all the time.
By the time we get home, we wind up just relaxing with each other instead of... firing each other up. You know?”
“Oh, I know,” Georgia said, her sigh a clear reference to her on-and-off boyfriend of four years, Wes.
“Thing is, babe, it’s an easy fix. All that attraction and sexual chemistry is still there.
It’s always been there. It’s just buried under a million layers of life and stress and all the complexities of your relationship.
But it only ever takes is one night to wake it all up.
And before you even know it, you two will be humping like bunnies. ”
“God, I hope you’re right, because it’s been a month since I’ve been laid and my vibrator basically handed me a letter of resignation last night.”
“Wow, that is quite the visual. But hey, you know the saying ‘distance makes the heart grow fonder’?”
“Yes…”
“Well, I think distance also makes your climax stronger.”
I broke into a laugh that was half-groan as I glanced at the clock. “That’s… beautiful, Georgia. But on that note, I gotta go. This meeting’s about to start any second.”
“Fine, but text me later to let me know how it goes with Caspar!” Georgia said eagerly just as the bartender slid a neat whiskey onto the counter next to me.
“I’ll text you tomorrow morning. Hopefully I’ll be too busy to text you tonight,” I said, looking down at the fingers wrapping around the whiskey, then up at who they belonged to—a smirking Adam as he slid into the seat next to mine.
“Hopefully being the key word,” he said as I hung up.
My eyes rolled back. “Adam. If you don’t let go of that one stupid thing you overheard about my sex life, I’m going to go into extreme detail about every time in the past five years that Caspar rocked my world with his nine-inch dick.”
Adam choked on the first sip of his drink, but my satisfaction was short-lived. “Christ, I think we’ve hit a new low for Cassie when you’re lying about his dick size for him.”
“Who says I’m lying?” I quipped, but the very dry look I earned made it clear that there was no point in trying to keep up the act. “Alright, fine, I’m lying, but for the record, I don’t need to defend Caspar’s bedroom abilities to you and also, no woman actually wants a dick that big inside her.”
Adam lifted his eyebrows. “No?” he laughed. “And why not?”
I blinked. Because it would hurt? And if it was that big, you wouldn’t be able do it that hard?
But also you’ve never been with a nine-inch dick, so you don’t know that for sure, I considered, feeling a tiny rush of heat in my cheeks as I entertained a brief but very X-rated fantasy of what it would feel like to have a dick that big inside me.
“For the record, I’ve never had any complaints,” Adam said.
And coincidentally, my thighs clenched.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy, AJ, I scolded myself.
But it was too late. I wasn’t even looking at Adam, but the smirk was audible in his suddenly wicked voice and out of nowhere, the heat in my cheeks flooded down to my neck.
Bitch, are you flustered? I asked myself, so stunned that I forced myself to act quickly normal by tossing my hair back and giving a “pshh” as I picked up my wine.
“Yeah, if Caspar doesn’t have a nine-inch dick, Adam, neither do you,” I scoffed, though my eyebrows pinched together as soon as the words left my lips, and I stared unblinkingly forward as I drank my wine in frowning silence, taking a couple seconds to realize my grave mistake—which was that one, I had no reason to say what I just said so confidently, because two, Adam was probably that big, given what I’d seen of him under his basketball shorts at the gym and three, it was weird as fuck of me to act like he and Caspar were anywhere on the same level.
They weren’t anything close to the same kind of man.
Which was totally fine.
I’d always loved and appreciated Caspar for who he was, even if he got occasionally sensitive about the kind of guys I was constantly surrounded by at work—in his words, “Meathead jocks who only talk about money and sports and probably have dick-measuring contests.” Hell, if there was any one thing I found unappealing about Caspar, it was his insecurity over Adam, because it was always pointless and silly and totally unfounded.
Until now, apparently, because you’re fucking blushing your face off and wondering what a nine-inch dick feels like, and Adam can a thousand percent tell, so get your shit together, I scolded myself.
But it was most definitely too late, because from the corner of my eye, I could see Adam having the time of his life, his head tilted just so as he watched me suffer quietly through my inner turmoil.
But then with a crooked grin on his lips, he faced forward like me and took a drink from his glass.
“I think we both know I have a couple things your fiancé doesn’t,” he said, making my cheeks light on fire all over again.
Because he absolutely did.
Dick aside, he had the clout. The success. The respect. Every networking connection in LA that an aspiring filmmaker would kill for. Yes, Adam did have literally everything that Caspar wanted, and yes, it was exactly why my fiancé was constantly texting me to come home whenever I had to work late.
Because he was jealous.
That much had always been abundantly clear to both Adam and me. It just went mercifully unspoken of over the past five years, because it’d be painfully awkward for me to have to acknowledge that my boss’s mere existence managed to threaten my relationship in any way.
Doing that would be a slippery slope down a road where I’d also have to acknowledge that my boss was very, very attractive and appealing as a man, and that was a fact that I had happily forgotten many years ago.
Though it was clearly rearing its unwanted head right now.
For the love of God, AJ, what the fuck? I demanded of myself, taking a deep breath and facing Adam only once I knew the heat had drained from my cheeks.
“Not that I’m ever shocked by what a dick you are, but is there a reason you’re being the particular worst about Caspar today?” I finally asked, mostly as a long-winded way of saying “you fucking suck.”
“Am I?” Adam frowned. And for a brief moment, considering the slight falter in his smile, I thought he was about to be serious.
To have an actual answer for me. But then the corner of his mouth twisted into a crooked grin.
“Apologies. My intention is to go this hard every day, but I’ll be sure to pick up the slack. ”
I groaned. “I’m going to do actual damage to my corneas if I roll my eyes any harder, so I won’t. But please know that your joke just now sucked.”
“Noted. Shall we get on with this meeting?”
“Please.”
And for the next forty-five minutes, we did exactly that, reviewing all the notes we’d compiled for tomorrow’s meeting with Knox.
It wasn’t difficult. We’d been obsessively preparing for this presentation all month, which was definitely a good thing now, because as incredibly important as this potential client was to me, I couldn’t quite focus on him right now.
My mind was fixed entirely on two things:
Getting over the weird exchange I’d just had with Adam.
And getting ready to pull off this big surprise for Caspar.
Thankfully, the excitement of the latter soon overtook the former, so pretty much the second we wrapped on the meeting, I popped up from my chair, chugged the last of my wine and beamed as Adam handed over his extra room key while giving me the customary look of annoyance.
“Just don’t take too long, alright?” he said as I tucked the card into my pocket. “I need to shower and get ready for dinner once you’re done.”
“No worries, I’ll be fast,” I said, tossing back the final gulp of my wine. “Who’s your date tonight, by the way?”
“No idea. I’m still deciding between Jess and Danielle.”
“What, are they on call for you or something?” I snorted.
But as Adam took a drink from his glass and gave me a blank stare, I realized they very much were.
“Oh, gross,” I crinkled my nose, because five years later, I was still in awe of the amount of shit the man got away with.
But as I slung my purse over my shoulder and weighed between the almost identical, model-looking blondes, I put in my two cents. “I say go with Jess.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“Because Danielle’s from NorCal and she says ‘hella’ so often that you kept saying ‘hella’ after spending a night with her last time, and it was in an ironic way, but I haven’t forgiven you for it.”
Adam raised his eyebrows. “Jess it is,” he concluded as he whipped out his phone. “Now get your ass moving so we can get on with our nights.”
“Trust me, I’m gone,” I grinned, heading out. “But hey, cheers to us both getting laid tonight,” I called over my shoulder.
Adam didn’t look up from his phone. “Cheers to just you,” he corrected. “Since it’s a much rarer occurrence for you.”