Page 11 of Earl

“Of?”

She shook her head. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

His expression hardened. “I have been there several times already. Now, I am just having a bit of fun. Cathy, yes, that’s her name, is just someone to talk to. We are having fun together without the pressure and I would appreciate you not trying to spoil things. You were the one who recommended this, remember?”

“Yes,” she nodded quickly.

“Good, now just leave it at that. It is completely innocent. Two people having some harmless conversations.”

Chapter 3

But in the week that followed, he realized he was fooling himself. He loved talking to her and could not wait to get home to have a long chat with her in his bedroom. He even found himself breaking the rules by texting her during a board meeting.

“Hey.”

“Hey. What are you doing?”

“Working, as you should be doing as well. Unless you are one of those idle rich guys who sits on his ass and expect things to be handed to him on a silver platter.”

He had barely contained the laughter bubbling up inside him.

“Not a chance. I am in a meeting and it is boring as hell.”

“So, you expect me to entertain you.”

“Will you?” He added a woebegone face to the end of the question.

“I happen to be working, and you are distracting me.”

“Am I really distracting you?”

“Fishing for compliments?”

“Absolutely.”

“You are distracting me, and I have a deadline.”

“Ready to reveal what you do for a living?”

“Nope. Now get back to your boring as hell meeting and I will get back to work.”

“Talk later?”

“Absolutely!”

He had sat there gazing at his phone, until he realized that someone had called his attention to the matter at hand.

Now he was home, prowling the length of his bedroom, a frown on his brow. He loved talking to her. She had an acerbic wit that appealed to him. They had agreed to be exclusive - settle on each other and go on from there.

“No strings,” she told him. “And whenever we feel like ending this, we go on our way, with no hard feelings.”

He had agreed, but he had no intention of ending it. He was already attracted to her which was ridiculous, considering he had no idea who she really was or what she looked like. They were not even permitted to talk about physical appearances.

The app leaned more to two people getting to know each other first. It was based on finding the inner beauty in the other person. At first, he thought it was trite and foolish, but he was beginning to see the value.

Speaking to her each night, and yes, he had to talk to her every night, or he would not go to sleep. He had a trip coming up and it was going to be Europe. He was already dreading it. They would be in different time zones, and he was not sure she would want to sacrifice sleep time to have their usual conversations.

His head whipped around when he heard the familiar sound indicating that he had a notification. Forcing himself to take a steady breath, he walked slowly to the bedside table and picked up his phone. His heart took a dive when he saw the message.

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