“Exactly. Who wouldn’t want to date that?”
He leaned forward on the table. “Here’s the thing though, buddy, you don’t want to date anyone. Isn’t that the tune you’ve waxed fuckin’ lyrical for the last few months?”
He wasn’t wrong. I had. It was the one thing I’d insisted on—I didn’t want to date. I wasn’t ready to date.
But I hadn’t been ready for Lauren, either.
Yet here she was, in my life, working her way into my heart bit by bit.
I hadn’t been ready for any of this. I hadn’t wanted any of this. But I didn’t have a say in any of it. It’d just been thrown on me, and I had to go with it.
The biggest problem would be getting Lauren on board with it, too.
“Yeah, it is,” I admitted. “I don’t want to date, Trev, but I don’t think I want to walk away from her either.”
“What the fuck do you do, though? You’re not in a real relationship. You’ve both made it clear it’ll never be anything more.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll think of something. There’s a little time. I have her number. I know where she lives. And she owes me for helping her bath her demon cat.”
He snorted. “What are you gonna do? Show up at her door with placards like that dick from that stupid movie?”
“Love Actually?”
“Whatever it’s called.”
“No. I’m not gonna do that. I’m gonna play it by ear at this point. She’s tough to read.”
He nodded slowly. “Makes sense. Heard anything else from Claudia?”
“No, but I get the feeling she isn’t done with me. She’s like a fly around shit.”
“She always has been. Your shit, her boss’s shit…”
I choked on my beer. “Yeah, yeah. She’s just the kind of person who doesn’t want you but doesn’t want anyone else to have you, either.”
“That’s called an asshole.”
“Well, yeah, but the point stands. She doesn’t want me; she just doesn’t want Lauren to have me.”
“Technically, she doesn’t have you.”
“I know that. You know that. Claudia doesn’t know that.”
He leaned forward. “Yeah, but why don’t you just not be with Lauren? Claudia would leave you alone then.”
I shook my head. “She won’t. She’s trying to get me back, but that will stop the second she thinks I’m single. It’s all games to try to make me do what she wants. She hasn’t said a fuckin’ word to me since we broke up. Now she’s all over me? Nah, she’s full of shit.”
Trev nodded slowly. “She is. She always has been, though. Lauren is nothing like her.” He coughed and rubbed his chin. “Honestly, she’s not gonna make it easy for you. It doesn’t matter now because you and Lauren aren’t really together, but if you go for it with her, it’s gonna be a problem.”
I sighed. He was right, but I wasn’t going to sit here and let my ex control the rest of my life.
I had very fucking real feelings for Lauren. They weren’t going to go anywhere anytime soon, not as long as she was in my life. The problem was that I wanted her to stay in my life.
The more time we spent together, the more I fell for her. The more I wanted to fall for her—even if her cat was a total fucking jerk.
I finished my beer. Trev did the same, setting his glass down on the table. We both threw some money down on the table and headed for the exit.
“See you tomorrow at work?” Trev checked his watch.
“Same as every Monday,” I replied, pulling my phone from my pocket. There was a missed call from an unknown number but no message, so I cleared the notification and put it back in my pocket.
I waved him goodbye and turned toward my apartment. It was only a couple of blocks, and it didn’t take me long to get from the bar to my place. I dug my keys out and let myself in, then took the stairs up to my apartment.
And froze.
“What the hell are you doing here again?”
The blonde woman outside my apartment turned, and Claudia looked back at me. “Can we talk?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – LAUREN
“So, I like him.” I poured wine into my glass. “Obviously, this is a problem.”
Tina took the bottle when I was done with it. “I don’t see the problem. He’s hot. He’s a nice guy. He makes you laugh. Why would pursuing something real with him be bad?”
“Because she’s a grumpy bitch,” Madi said, taking the bottle and finishing it off in her glass. “She banged the guy last night, but today is the problem?”
I rolled my eyes. “Look, it was a lapse in judgment.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was an excellent idea. If you get the opportunity to sleep with such a fine specimen, you should damn well do it.”
“Put your vagina away,” Tina said. “Lauren, it wasn’t a bad choice. You had sex with him. So what? What is the worst that could happen? He says no? He obviously likes you.”