“The fact that it’s his one off day a week, and I highly doubt he’s going to just spend the day jerking off in his living room like the homebody he’s not,” Emily said. “You make his schedule. What’s he doing tonight?”
I took a second to think. “He has a dinner tonight,” I replied.
“With who?”
“A friend.”
Emily arched an eyebrow. “The kind he has sex with?”
I pursed my lips. The answer was yes, because his dinner date was with Naomi, his fuck buddy from his days at Stanford Law. She was particularly eager to see him while she was in town, which was why I’d confirmed this reservation for them over two weeks ago.
Emily took my silence as the “yes” it very much was.
“So, how would you feel if Adam slept with her tonight?” she asked.
“Well, we’re not dating, so he’s well within his right to sleep with her,” I said.
“Obviously, but how would it make you as a person feel?” Emily pressed.
Totally fine? I tried the thought out in my head but realized it didn’t actually fly as hoped. Okay no, not really. Ugh. I couldn’t even lie in my own head.
Reading the look on my face, Emily sighed.
“Alright, well, I’ll wrap this up since you both look like you want to jump off a bridge right now,” she snorted, glancing over at Georgia who had her chin in her hand and her glass overturned to drip the last bit of mimosa onto her tongue. Shaking her head, Emily laughed before turning to me, her eyes softer now. “I’m sorry for being an asshole about this stuff, AJ. I know it’s annoying and it’s not what you want to hear, but I’m only this tough, because I know what this job means to you. We all saw what you had to deal with in college with Schilling, and I just don’t want even a shade of that to happen again,” she said earnestly, offering a sad little smile as I nodded in understanding. Then she turned back to Georgia. “Help me out here, GiGi.”
“He’s hot as fuck, I say go for it,” Georgia said, barely finished with her sentence before Emily had her hand covering her face. “What?” Georgia frowned. “I mean I can acknowledge that it’s risky what AJ’s doing, but I also know someone as measured and careful as she is wouldn’t be doing it if her body wasn’t calling for it.”
Emily cackled. “I love how you have a way of framing impulsive decisions as something healthy and holistic.”
“You know me, I’m all about listening to your body. I can’t even begin to tell you how much better life got for me when I stopped counting calories and just eating intuitively.”
“Are we really comparing Adam to food?” I snorted.
“We should, considering I’d lick him all over,” Georgia smiled brightly at me. “Can we get confirmation, by the way, on how big it is?”
I gave her a look that said not now, but then I saw Emily arch a curious eyebrow at me. “Wait—what the hell? You don’t get to disapprove of my choices and then ask me how big Adam’s dick is!” I practically yelled.
But I was also thankful for a reason to laugh, because I knew we needed it—in particular Emily and me. Georgia had been very much there for me during the whole thing that went down in college, but as my sister, Emily shared half my heart, and had hurt for me on a whole other level than my friends when Schilling did what he did.
So as much as everything she’d just said sucked to hear, I gave her a pass. Because I knew it came from a place of love.
Tough love, for sure. But love nonetheless.
18
AJ
After an overall good brunch with the girls, we’d gone shopping for a bit, taking a walk through the mall then a quick stroll on the beach before I had to go home to finish a report on Knox that I hadn’t quite wrapped up yesterday at the office, thanks to my intermittent fuming over Caspar’s shitty texts.
“And... bye-bye,” I murmured to myself as I officially blocked his number and deleted him in my messages. It took a second after the initial swipe left, because there was something so final about hitting delete on literally years and years’ worth of texts.
But as soon as I did it I smiled, feeling actually lighter. I felt so good, in fact, that I managed to finish my work in half the time I’d expected, which was perfect since I needed to get this jump drive full of Knox highlights back to Adam tonight—just for some extra reviewing ahead of our second meeting with Knox on Thursday.
Peering at the clock, I wiggled my pursed lips.
For work purposes, I’d let myself into Adam’s all the time. The protocol was just to text him a heads up, which I usually did when I was ten minutes away.
But it was seven-fifteen right now and his date was at eight, and since the restaurant was a thirty minute drive from his house, he was probably getting ready right now. Most likely showering or getting dressed.