God I Hate that Man

“Umm… we didn’t use any protection…”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m on birth control.”

“Oh, okay. Well…” he doesn’t look so flustered anymore.

But seeing him almost naked is starting to have an effect on me instead. An effect I most certainly don’t want him to be aware of.

Finn gets to his feet. “Goodnight, Ashley.”

“Night, Finn,” I reply, but he has already closed the door, cutting off my words.

Yeah, it’s going to be weird.

12

Finn

I still can’t believe she was so fucking casual about it, like what we just did meant nothing at all to her. I also can’t believe I’m not relieved about that. I should be relieved about it. She even made a joke about it, a joke clearly designed to get me out of her room.

I sigh into the darkness. I’ve been in bed for over an hour now and I’m no closer to getting to sleep than I was when I first came to bed. All I can see when I close my eyes is Ashley. All I can think about is how good it felt to be inside of her, how much she writhed beneath me, how hard we both came.

I can feel myself getting hard just thinking about it, so I try to think about something else. Instead of thinking about anything else, I see Ashley in my arms again. I blink away the image and then I see her propped up on her pillows telling me this can never happen again. It’s not exactly a total change of thought patterns, but my cock as sure as hell backs off when I think of her rejecting me.

I punch the pillow and slam my head into it. I feel frustrated with myself.

I wanted her to agree that we couldn’t do it again. I know it can’t happen again, and I don’t want to hurt Ashley, so I need her to be in agreement, but she agreed too damn easily for my liking. She dismissed me as if I was a used bar of soap.

And the fact she was quite contentedly reading a book bothers me more than it should. Like how can she just casually lay there reading, and not have these crazy thoughts plaguing her mind? I bet she’s even asleep right now. And here I am, unable to get any sleep at all, because I can’t damn well get her out of my mind.

I don’t know what it’s going to be like between us now. I know she said it won’t be weird between us, and I want to believe her, but I don’t think it’s going to be her who makes it weird. I have a horrible feeling it’ll be me.

I’m going to do my best to avoid Ashley as much as possible for the next few days. At least until I get her out of my mind and feel like I can be normal around her again.

It’s been two days since Ashley and I fucked.

It’s pretty much all I’ve thought about in between meetings and calls. Yesterday morning, I heard her moving around from my office and I waited for the awkward moment when we bumped into each other for the first time, but minutes later, I heard the front door shut and she was gone.

She crept back in late, like after midnight late. And then this morning, she sneaked out at the crack of dawn again. If it had been weekdays, I would say it’s been a coincidence that Ashley’s just been working long hours. But it’s the weekend so I know it is unlikely she has to stay out that much. The only explanation is she’s decided to avoid me too.

In some ways, I’m relieved, but I’ve decided this ends tonight. This is ridiculous. We can’t avoid each other forever, and the longer we leave it before we see each other again, the more awkward it’s going to be between us.

I know my original plan was to avoid her, but I have no intention of seeing it through. By the time I woke up this morning I’d already decided to talk it out. See, I’m not a total asshole. I don’t want her to feel uncomfortable being in my home, not when I’ve told her she’s welcome to stay. I think if I plan it in such a way, so we bump into each other and get the awkwardness out of the way, then we’ll be fine again.

We can go back to being… what? Friends? We were never really friends. Acquaintances? I’d like to think we were a little more than that. Business associates? Yes, that’s probably the closest description of what we were. Whatever it was, we were just starting to be able to tolerate each other without snapping at each other’s throats, and I’d like that back.

I’ll force us to run into each other today. I finished up the few bits of work I had to do nice and early, because I don’t want it to be obvious it’s a forced plan. If I dart out of my office when I hear her come in, it’ll be obvious I planned it that way. Instead, I’m sitting in the living room with the TV on as though it’s just a normal evening and I’m watching a movie. Which if she knew me, she would know is something I never do. In fact, paying attention to the TV is really hard work and I have to force myself to sit here and endure the inane nonsense flirting across the scene.