“C’mon,” I said, handing him a glass of ice water and lowering myself to the couch.
He glanced away from my face when I handed him the water, expression like he was shaking off whatever he’d read in the notebook. “So, buffer?”
“Who would want to drive to rural Illinois to be my buffer?”
“I don’t know. A friend?” He lifted the glass. “I would do it. I mean, if you needed me.”
I tipped my glass to my lips. “If you showed up, they’d think I’d paid an escort or something.”
“Why?”
“Look at you! Anyway, what would my friend get out of this ruse?”
He smiled and waggled his eyebrows. “You’d owe them a favor.”
“I’m not sleeping with someone because they protect me from being set up with Calvin.” Except I would totally sleep with you.
“I didn’t say a sexual favor.” He tossed a pillow at me.
He was about to say something else, but his phone buzzed, and he pulled it from his pocket. Frowning at the screen, he peeled himself up from the couch. He nodded toward the balcony, and I motioned for him to go ahead.
“Hi,” he said, answering the phone and stepping onto the balcony. “Kelsey . . .” The door closing blocked out the rest of his conversation.
Kelsey. I thumbed through my timeline while I waited, pretending I didn’t care who Kelsey was. I glanced at the insight numbers. Claire’s post from earlier that day had higher engagement than anything else Best Life had posted, including my latest piece. Claire had been kind lately, and I didn’t hate that her numbers were so good. Rather, I really didn’t want to hate that her numbers were so good.
Wes speaking into his phone pulled me out of my pettiness as he slid the door closed behind him. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow night.” His eyes widened and his face reddened.
She was saying something sexy to Wes, and I felt like a jerk listening, but I couldn’t help myself. Was she saying she loved him or describing the things she wanted to do to him?
“Um, okay. We’ll see.” He tapped the screen and shoved it back in his pocket. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem,” I said, setting my phone aside. My plan was to play it cool, but I was curious. “Another client?”
“My ex,” he said with a sigh, finishing the water in his glass. “Do you mind if I grab that beer after all?”
“Sure, let me.” I groaned and pulled myself up, surprised when Wes’s hands closed around mine to help me up.
“It won’t always feel like that. I promise.”
He meant after working out, but as he helped me up, our bodies were close. I don’t mind if it always feels like this. While I grabbed a beer, one of the craft microbrews left from those I’d stocked for Ben, I couldn’t leave well enough alone.
I tried to adjust my voice so it seemed like I was a normal level of curious and not a jealous weirdo. “So, you’re going out with your ex tomorrow?” I handed him the opener, and our hands grazed again, that same rush traveling up my arm.
He took a pull from the bottle. “Looks that way.”
I flashed back to his face reddening when he spoke with her, and tried to picture the woman Wes would date. I came up with petite, blond, and the owner of killer abs.
Wes shifted back to our earlier conversation. “When do you need me to keep your mom from marrying you off to Calvin?”
“You’re nuts,” I said with a laugh, refilling my water glass. “They’d think I was dating anyone I brought home.”
“And that person might have to fight Calvin for your attention. Think I could take him?”
My laugh came out as a bark, and I almost sprayed water on him. “He’s a nice guy, but if memory serves, he’s allergic to everything, very into birds, and sweats a lot. I’m guessing you could take him with this whole thing you’ve got going on.” I gestured to his arms and hoped he didn’t notice how my gaze tripped again on his defined chest.
He shrugged, adopting a cocky grin. “To be fair, you can’t control allergies, birds are kind of cool, and I sweat a lot, too.”
“Well, my mom would like you if you ever showed up.”
Wes leaned against my fridge and sipped his beer, a smile playing on his lips. “Good to know.”
30
MY FEET POUNDED against the pavement as I shifted into a sprint along the mostly empty sidewalk. Getting a run in before meeting Britta at the gym seemed like a good idea to get my mind off the restless energy I’d felt since leaving her place. My head and my dick had been at odds since I flipped through that notebook of hers. She’d been right; it was a lot of doodles and random sentences or phrases, but I’d stopped on a mostly blank page with three lines. It was a haiku, but that wasn’t what made me pause. The words were seared into my head.