“I did, but that doesn’t mean that Phillip Fitzsimmons isn’t as rude and chauvinistic as Freeman is.”
“You said he was big into charities, like for children. That’s got to be a good sign.”
“You’d think so, but it’s his public image. I guess I’m cynical because of what it’s been like here, the dirty jokes and the brushing up against the girls and the fact that I know damn well that I was hired because of how I look—I was the only woman who applied.”
“Just hope for the best. It’s about to change for the better.”
Chapter 9
Britt didn’t get any more emails from Jack, the guitarist, but he was in her thoughts, her dreams. She woke up often, breathing hard, remembering. She stopped wanting him so much during the day. The madness receded. She figured it had just been a natural derangement following the best sex ever. Probably most people acted goofy after an amazing hookup, but they were, in all fairness, in college and not her age, not just some staid accountant who’d never been laid like that before. For days, she put it out of her mind during the day, only to have fragments of her hook up appear in her dreams. She couldn’t explain away his eyes, the blue so deep it was almost black. She couldn’t get past the way he’d looked at her, treated her like she wasn’t a one off, like she was someone who mattered to him. Britt couldn’t believe she was so insecure that one night with a guy who was fairly nice to her left her with days of besotted hangover. She was slowly but surely developing a crush on a man whose email she deleted, whose interest she’d refused. He wasn’t right for her, she knew. He was just a hell of a lot of fun, and fun had been missing from her life for a long time.
She stopped by Marj’s desk one afternoon.
“Babe, you look like shit, what’s wrong?” Marj asked.
“I’m pining. I am PINING AWAY for the guy I hooked up with. That’s what’s wrong. I can’t eat, as in I don’t get hungry. Unless I see donuts like this morning, then I eat like three. But I can’t eat normally. I’m not sleeping unless you count sex dreams that are just exhausting at this point...what can I do, Marj?”
“You’re a hot mess today. I think you need to hydrate. Here, have some water,” she handed Britt a bottle of water and Britt obediently drank from it.
“That didn’t help. I still want to find out his number and text him.”
“So do it. Who says a one-nighter can’t turn into a relationship?”
“I don’t want a relationship with some slacker guitarist who picks up girls.”
“So why would you text him. I thought you were hung up on him.”
“I’m not hung up on him. I want him to restore my sanity.”
“Did he steal it?”
“Yes. He was too good in bed. I’ve never slept with anyone and been distracted by remembering it afterward.”
“You’ve been with the wrong guys, then,” Marj observed.
“Probably, but the point is now I have this, I don’t know, sex drive that I never knew I had. I want him. Again. And again and again.”
Marj laughed.
“Oh, honey. Maybe join a gym.”
“That isn’t going to give me the kind of endorphins I want.”
“I meant maybe you can hook up with a hot guy from the gym,” Marj joked.
“You’re not exactly helping. I need to refocus on my work and catch up on my voicemails and, I don’t know, clean out my closet.”
“Get rid of that ugly shirt you have on. You’re not seventy years old, Britt. Stop dressing like it.”
“I have the one sexy dress and just look at the trouble that got me into. I’m mentally undressing the UPS guy now, I swear.”
“He has nice legs.”
“He’s bald!”
“Okay, point taken. Thing is, Britt, if you want to get laid, go get laid. If you want to get over him, then do that. But make up your damn mind! You can’t divide your focus between wanting him and whining about why you don’t want him.”
“You should maybe not become a therapist. That was mean.”