He looked at me a little blankly and then tossed the cup into the garbage. “I won’t get in your way, Cassie.”
I leaned against the wall beside the water cooler. “Come on, I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that, well, I’m sorry I didn’t know what you were going through before.”
Curtis rubbed his neck and winced. “How could you have known?”
“I don’t know. But I feel like I didn’t give you the benefit of the doubt and I should have.”
He stared at me for so long I started to wonder if I’d managed to offend him somehow. I felt compelled to do something to fill the silence so I started talking again.
“Curtis, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that I’m probably not your favorite person here but I hope we can find a way to be friends. Maybe. Or something like that.” I dug my nails into my palms in the hopes it would make me stop talking. That way I could stop cringing over the dumb words that kept pouring out of my mouth.
He raised an eyebrow. “Why do you think that?”
“That we can be friends? I didn’t mean to assume-“
“No. That you’re not my favorite person here.”
I shrugged. “I guess because it seems like we argue a lot.”
“Are we arguing now?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I don’t think so either.” Curtis leaned a few inches closer, like he was trying not to be overheard by anyone outside this room. “You’re not my least favorite of anything, Cassie. I’m always happy to see you.”
Then he left, which was a good thing because I was probably blushing up a storm. Worse than that, a shock of electric desire was still surging through my core and left me flattened against the wall for support.
“I’m always happy to see you.”
He didn’t mean anything, at least nothing more than civility. I wasn’t even sure I wanted him to mean anything more than that. Sure, I’d caught him looking at me a few times but I was used being checked out by men. He obviously wasn’t planning to do anything about it. Besides, getting involved with Curtis Mulligan was out of the question, especially if he was going to be staying at my house. The fact that he had turned out to be much more than careless party animal made the idea even more impossible. Curtis had a world of responsibilities that I couldn’t relate to. Plus we worked together. Being with him would turn messy for a variety of reasons. I’d avoided that kind of drama for so long. I’d avoided everything for so long; hookups, dating, sex of any kind. Curtis wasn’t the guy to wade into those complicated waters with.
And yet I knew that if I kept my vibrator in my purse I would absolutely be excusing myself and heading to the ladies’ room to do something constructive about the ache between my legs.
Instead I returned to the front desk and tried to look like a girl who wasn’t fighting the urge to run to the bathroom and have a masturbatory fantasy about the man who would be sleeping on her parents’ couch tonight.
I thought I did a pretty adequate job.
But I felt like a damn idiot.