Page 59 of Obsession on Repeat
His jaw tensed. "No. It doesn’t."
We stood in that quiet a little longer.
"I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep," I whispered.
"I’m not asking for any. I want to know if this was real for you. It was for me."
I studied the angles of his face, his eyes watching me with a hint of vulnerability lurking underneath. "It was real."
He stepped closer, enough that I could feel his warmth again. "I don’t want to rush you. I’m not going anywhere. You should know that."
My throat tightened, a swell of something heavy and full sitting right behind my ribs. "I don’t know what I’m doing," I confessed. "I'm figuring a lot of things out, regaining who I am again, but I know I don’t want to pretend this didn’t happen."
"Then we won’t."
He brushed his knuckles against my hand. I laced my fingers through his and smiled.
Gina gave me a look as I passed the bar that was equal parts smug and nosy. I flipped her off discreetly. She blew me a kiss. Asher trailed a few paces behind me, suddenly very interested in his phone as if we hadn’t made out like sinners on a church couch.
I tried to focus on resetting the booth, but when I looked up, he was watching. And every time he caught me watching him back, he smirked.
"Rory."
I turned to see Vanessa in the doorway, her face unreadable. My heart sank a little. "Hey."
"Can I see you for a minute?" She barely looked at him, as if knowing nothing she would say would matter to him. He ignored her, flipping casually through his phone from his position on the couch.
I followed her up to her office where she gestured me inside and shut the door behind us. She didn’t sit. Neither did I.
"I don’t care what you do in your free time, but you know I want to be kept in the loop when it comes to anything that might shift the dynamic in my club."
"It won’t affect anything."
She raised an eyebrow. "Does he know that?"
I swallowed and nodded again, unsure exactly what to say to diffuse the situation. My heart beat wildly in my chest, the thought of being fired suddenly a glaring possibility.
"So, it’s something."
It wasn’t a question.
"Yes, it’s something."
She studied me for a moment, then, surprisingly, she smiled. "Good."
I blinked. "Wait, what?"
Vanessa leaned a hip against the desk. "You’ve been walking around like a closed book since day one. Now you’ve got color in your face, passion in your sets, and a guy who would throw himself in front of a train if it meant buying you another five minutes of sleep."
My lips twitched. "That’s… dramatic."
She shrugged. "So is he." She studied me. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I am."
She smiled again. "Then I’ll leave it alone. I’m going to suggest keeping the storage room on lock-down from now on."
I couldn’t stop myself from blushing. "Everyone knows, don’t they?"
