Page 83 of The Jerk in Apartment 1B

“I’m not going to regret it,” she snaps, her anger rising. “And this has nothing to do with Asher. You know I like you, and I thought you liked me… unless I was wrong.”

“Trina, you know I like you.”

“Then what’s the problem? Why are you telling me no? We had such a great night and now—”

“And now it’s over.” I take both her hands in mine. “I agree we had a great night. So let’s just leave it at that.”

“Can you at least tell me why?”

“I just can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

She yanks her hands from mine. “I don’t understand you.” She races to get her panties from the floor. “You’ve slept with probably a hundred girls, but for some reason I’m not good enough?”

“Trina, I never said that.”

“Don’t talk to me.” She runs to the door, then stops and turns back. “My first impression of you was right. You’re a jerk!”

She leaves, slamming the door behind her. Moments later, I hear her own door slam shut.

She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t get that I said no because I care about her more than I should. Sex wouldn’t just be sex with her, and that’s a problem. I wouldn’t be able to keep it casual like I do with other girls. I’d want more. And I don’t do more. I can’t get involved with a girl. I can’t develop feelings for her.

Unfortunately, I already have feelings for Trina. By the time I realized that, it was too late. But it’s not too late to stop this before it turns into something more. That’s why I turned her down.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Trina

“I went on my date last night,” I say to Callie the next morning.

I called her as soon as I woke up. For the first time since moving here, I slept for the entire night. It’s because of that new mattress. It might’ve also been because of what Scott did to me on his kitchen counter. That was unreal. My entire body exploded with pleasure. It was pure bliss, until Scott ruined it by telling me to leave.

“It was a date?” Callie asks. “I thought you were just going out as friends.”

“We were, but we called it a fake date. I told Scott I was afraid to date because I’m so out of practice, so we decided to pretend last night was a date so I wouldn’t be so nervous when I went on a real date. But it didn’t really work. I’m too comfortable with Scott after spending last week with him working on the storage room.”

“What’d you guys do?”

“Drinks, dinner, and then he took me to a gallery that was having a fashion photography exhibit.”

“That’s like your dream date,” Callie jokes, but she’s right. Itwasmy dream date… until Scott turned me down.

“It was a great night. The exhibit was amazing. We were there for hours.”

I’m sure Scott was bored being there that long, and yet he never said he was, and never once told me to hurry up. Asher would’ve complained after being there for ten minutes. Actually, he never would’ve taken me there. He has no interest in fashion. He wouldn’t even let me talk about it. Every time I tried, he tuned me out.

“It’s good you got out and did something. It sounds like you had fun.”

“I did, and I got to dress up. I’ve missed that. Getting ready to go out. Putting on a nice dress. Doing my hair and makeup. I haven’t done that for months.”

“Yeah, you love that. We’re complete opposites that way. If I’m going out, I just throw on jeans and a t-shirt, especially now, being a mom. Dressing up for me has become finding a shirt that doesn’t have a stain on it.”

“Scott dressed up too,” I say, remembering how my heart raced when I saw him. The guy knows how to dress, and he smelled really good. Too good. I kept wanting to get closer to him. “He took me to a really nice restaurant. We were there for almost two hours.”

“This is sounding more like a real date than a fake one.”

“It kind of turned into that.”

“What do you mean?”

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