Page 69 of Chips & Checks
Violet shakes her head. She extricates herself from my lap and stumbles back to the couch. “Not tonight,” she says with her back to me. “I need the evening to myself. Take a bath. Do my toenails. Decompress before tomorrow. Besides, if you stick around too long, I might get the wrong impression.” She takes her physio ball to the kitchen, and I hear the splashing sounds of running water.
The words land like a slap wrapped in velvet. I know she’s teasing—half-teasing—but it still hits.
While I’m alone, I take a moment to sort out my thoughts. This used to be what I wanted: to come over, get my dick wet, and leave.
But now I’m standing here like a goddamn idiot, wishing she’d ask me to stay. That she’d reach for me again. That she’d say maybe just one more hour. One more kiss. One more night.
Tonight, I’m left feeling deflated. Rejected. I wanted to fall asleep beside her and wake up next to her and go to brunch with our families in the morning. I don’t recognize this version of myself.
Because this version isn’t cool or detached. This version is one look, one laugh, one brush of her hand away from falling hard and fast. This version wants things. Dangerous things.
I get up and use the box of tissues on the coffee table to clean up. I remind myself that I shouldn’t feel disappointed, but the feeling is impossible to push away.
She gave me her body. But not her time. Not tonight. And I want both. Fuck. I want all of it.
Violet is leaving her toy out to dry when I dip into the kitchen to trash the condom.
“You can still change your mind,” I tease.
Beg, more like. I’m half a breath from begging.
And that’s what messes with me the most—how cool she is. How she walks away like it’s easy. Like she didn’t just wreck me and leave me aching for more. Most women push back on the rules. They test them. Hate them. Try to change my mind. But Violet? She respects them. Upholds them. Honors the bullshit boundaries I made when I didn’t think anyone worth breaking them for would come along. And now that she has, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want the rules anymore—not if they mean losing her.
“But I won’t.” She pats my cheek. “See you tomorrow, Bowen.”
And that’s it. No kiss. No wistful look. No evidence that tonight meant anything more to her than convenience and a good orgasm.
It’s not enough. Which doesn’t make sense. Since when is sex not enough?
Even I know the answer to that question: since I met Violet Sawyer.
Chapter Seventeen
Violet
Before our highly anticipated Thunderdome of a family brunch, Bowen and I agreed to meet for coffee and stage our lies—I mean, get our story straight just in case it comes up after the whole Chad hair-tucking episode. I show up first, only to get trapped behind a walking HR nightmare ordering thirty complicated frappes for his entire office. I order my usual and pretend to scroll my phone, but really, I’m tracking the door like I’m waiting for a Tinder match and not the man who recently turned my bones molten.
When Bowen finally walks in, my stupid heart launches itself toward him like a golden retriever on espresso. I want to run to him. Kiss him. Bite his bicep for no reason. But I rein it in, because the second we start acting like a real couple, we’re going to be grilled like paninis by our entire parental panel. And I cannot survive a brunch full of premature relationship eulogies if they sense even a whiff of emotion.
As far as they’re concerned, we just started dating. We barely know each other.
Bowen orders, then heads over to stand with me. The baristas are still working on that massive office order. I wish they’d hand me my drink, just so that I’d have something to do with my hands.
“We need a strategy,” I blurt, skipping hello like it’s a luxury I can’t afford. If I talk fast enough, maybe we can bypass the awkward post-orgasm-pre-brunch weird.
Bowen raises a brow, hands tucked into his pockets like he just strolled out of a GQ shoot. “Morning to you too, sunshine. Are we planning a heist or brunch with the parents?”
“Is there a difference?” I mutter, clutching my purse like it’s a lifeline. “We need to be on the same page. There’s no way we’ll convince them we’re not sleeping together.”
He smirks—slow, cocky, lethal. “So, I give off strong ‘just wrecked her’ vibes?”
“After the way you tried to kill Chad on the ice yesterday?” I shoot him a pointed look. “Yeah. Subtlety is not your spiritual gift.”
He has the audacity to chuckle. “Guess standing there with my arm around you like I’d knife anyone who looked too long didn’t help either?”
“Nope.” My voice tightens because I want that. The arm. The heat. The possessive edge that made my pulse skip. But that’s not our story.
God, I wish it was. I wish that arm around me wasn’t a performance. That when he pulls me close, it’s not because we’re faking something, but because he can’t stand not to. I want it to mean something—that the way he watches me like I’m the only thing in the room is real. I want to believe there’s a version of this where he slides his hand into mine under the table, kisses my temple without thinking, and doesn’t flinch at the wordus. But that’s the thing about wishes: they’re just pretty little lies we tell ourselves when reality isn’t enough.
