Page 60 of Sass

A smile tugged at his lips. “Of course. Who wouldn’t? He’s fucking hot.”

I kept my mouth shut on that little gem because Lord knew Gary wasn’t onmyshortlist, but each to their own. “Well, it must be your lucky day, since he obviously likes you too.”

Drew was back gnawing on his lip. “It’s terrifying.”

I blew out a sigh. “I know. All I’m saying is think about it. Gary is a great guy. I’d trust him to be kind, at the very least. It’s a good start. A teething ring, maybe?” I grinned at Drew’s snort of laughter.

“So, you think I should give him a chance, then?” The yearning in his eyes struck an unwanted chord in my own chest, one I’d been trying not to play.

“Kip?”

I blinked to find Drew frowning at me. “Sorry.” I scrambled to remember what he’d asked, then it suddenly popped into my brain. “Yes, I definitelydothink. But in the end, it’s up to you.”

“Okay.” He nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

It was a start. “Good. And don’t forget I want to see some underwear sketches before Rhys gets back.”

“Yeah, yeah, they’re coming. And now, I have a question for you.”

I blinked. “Fire away.”

He narrowed his gaze on me. “When doyoustart taking the same chances you’re so blithely keen to encourage others with?”

My mouth dried. “What?”

“You know what I mean. You deserve to be loved too, Kip.”

“That’s... not for me,” I floundered, suddenly wishing I’d never started the whole damn conversation.

“Is that right?” He never flinched. “Well, maybe it should be. And maybe you should give yourself a chance too. If I deserve it, then so do you. Stop pretending you don’t care. Now, are we done? Can I go make that coffee?”

“What?” The shockwave of his words rattled through my brain, but I managed a weak nod. “Um, sure. Thanks.”

Drew left with a smug little smile in place while I cast my eyes over the office walls once again and groaned. Burnt sienna. I was never going to be able to look at these walls and not think of Leon.Goddamn the man. He’d infested my brain like a bad song.

Not to mention, I hadn’t laid eyes on him since we’d finished painting, and I... ugh... I missed him. I ran the horror of the words through my brain again.Imissedhim. And what the fuck was up with that? The guys I took to bed sometimes missedme. Calledme.Textedme.Wanted to meet up again withme. I never missedthem.

But on Monday I’d looked up every time the store bell chimed. Tracked his steps on the wooden floors above. Imagined his voice at least a couple of times an hour. Hid like an idiot in the kitchen when I heard his footfalls on the stairs. Waited an hour past my usual leaving time, hoping he might drop by my office, only to hear him climb the stairs and shut his door. Admittedly, I’d been hiding in the kitchen... again.

He hadn’t left a coffee, a pastry... nothing. And what was up with that? You didn’t spend a week flirting, chatting, and buying a guy coffees and shit and then make them go cold turkey. No explanation. Nothing. We were supposed to be friends now, right? And you buy your friends coffee, dammit. You at least say hello.

And no, I wasn’t listening to myself because that would’ve been far too mortifying. And the fact that I hadn’t done any of those things myself was beside the point. Way, way beside the point. So much beside the point it may as well have been on a different continent.

Did I believe my own lies? Hell no, but I was trying.

The trouble was, I’d enjoyed Sunday afternoon far more than I should have. We’d painted alongside each other like we’d been doing stuff like that for years, and I’d ignored all the texts from my friends wondering if I was dead. And in-between coats, we drank coffee and snacked on pad Thai from the food truck two blocks away. We alternated playlists to check each other’s music tastes and were shocked to find we had a surprising amount of common ground. I particularly loved some of his new-to-me singer-songwriters, and I admitted to eavesdropping on his singing earlier in the week. He’d been taken aback at first; then a blush crept up his throat and a tiny, pleased smile made its way to his lips.

Leon’s playlists were, however, sorely lacking in gay anthems and held zero tracks by the goddess of song, Christina Aguilera—glaring omissions that I immediately rectified by downloading a playlist of my personal favourites onto his phone there and then. Leon promised to give them the rapt attention they deserved, and I’d painted a stripe of burnt sienna up the back of his old T-shirt for the outright lie.

But more surprising than the shared music appreciation was the easy conversation. Hours of it. He’d told me more about Caitlyn and what it was like growing up as a twin, and we chatted about his passion for ink and bikes. I talked about... well anything that wasn’t about my uncle or my arsehole family, although I did tell him about my brother’s visit and how I missed him in my life.

Leon had stopped painting at that point and pulled me into a hug that almost fucking undid me, a worrying state of affairs that was becoming all too frequent. Leon was a good man, a great lover, and interesting as hell, and I was increasingly struggling to come up with a reason that I shouldn’t ditch every rule in my damn book and just date the guy.

I barely recognised myself. Ridiculous, foolish, and very fucking confused. And Drew’s push back on my advice wasn’t helping.

For the first time in my life, I found myself wanting to really trust a man. To trust him and let him in. All that therapy and I was still as skittish as hell. I couldn’t even remember what that sort of trust felt like, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

But I hadn’t planned on Leon in my brain. And yet there he was. Front and centre. Like a mosquito at night, impossible to ignore and leaving me desperate to scratch the itch he left in his wake.

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