“See … you do know how to engage on a playdate. First, we call each other names, then you shove me. I shove you. Clothes come off. There’s some inappropriate language. Some begging. Likely grunting. You, of course, screaming. And then we go our separate ways and think about our actions.”
“Cersei! We’re leaving! Come, now!”
Those lips I want to kiss slide into a curved line of total satisfaction. “You shouldn’t walk home alone. We’ll walk you.”
“No!” I cringe and hustle to recover with a nervous laugh. “I mean … that’s ridiculous and we both know it. You didn’t walk me home last time.”
“You don’t have a home, do you?”
I shouldn’t reward him with an eye roll, but I can’t stop it. “You got me. I’m a homeless optometrist.”
“Well, let’s look at the facts. You don’t want me to walk you home. You’ve never invited me to your place. And you had me meet you at your office last Friday morning instead of picking you up at your ‘house.’” He air quotes house.
“I have not seen your house. Nor have you invited me,” I say, tipping my chin up.
“Come to my house. Come inside. Come in my bed. Just …” He smirks. “Come.”
“Cersei!” Before I have a chance to yell at her anymore, I realize she’s heeled right next to me. “There you are. Let’s go.” I attach her leash. “It was a one and done.”
“What was?” he asks.
“Our activities over the weekend. Jules and I go to concerts, but we rarely see the same act twice.”
“If you really like a band, and you just can’t get enough of their greatest hits, then you’d go to more than one concert. You’d stalk them. You’d be a groupie. You’d go to all of their shows. And you’d throw your panties on the stage and pray they picked you for a private tour of their bus or jet.”
Wrinkling my nose, I shake my head. “You need to know that a lot of my favorite bands or singers are female.”
“Why are you being so difficult?”
“Why are you being so perverted?”
“You mean persistent.”
“I mean perverted.” I gaze at him over the frames of my glasses.
He presses his finger to the bridge of them and pushes them up my nose. “Kiss me.”
I bat away his hand. “I’m not kissing you.”
“Why? Afraid you won’t be able to stop?”
“I can stop just fine. But I’m not kis—”
He kisses me. Asshole. Really. Worst friend ever.
I push at his chest to no avail. He slides a finger under my shorts and my panties like a pro with stealth precision. And … oh my god … my knees start to buckle. Then he pulls his lips away but leaves his fingers between my legs. Heat blooms along my cheeks and need makes its way to the very spot his fingers are stroking.
For fuck’s sake. We’re in public, even if I don’t see anyone around us. There’s Google satellites and shit like that.
Need wins.
I lunge for him, eager to have his mouth on mine again. But … he denies me. And he does it with so much cockiness I could rip his throat out with my teeth.
One step.
Two steps.
Three steps.
He backs away from me, dragging his fingers (those fingers) along his bottom lip. Then he swipes his tongue along the same path. “Told ya. See you Friday. I’ll text you the time and location.”
There’s not enough time to pull myself together or concoct the right comeback. In a flash, he and his dogs are twenty-five yards away without so much as a glance back at the remains of me and my scorched dignity.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“I filed a complaint with the court to begin the eviction process,” I say to Jules as we watch her kids swim in the pool. Her husband is out of town for a few days, so I offered to buy pizza for her crew in exchange for pool time and BFF therapy, even if I do know it’s going to lead to a major lecture.
“He’s a dick. The world’s biggest dick. I get why you’re not supposed to tell him about the pregnancy, but still … if he ever did love you or love himself for that matter, he’d move out and move on.”
“Jimmy purchasing a new driveway complicates things a bit. It’s ridiculous, just incomprehensible. It’s my house. I didn’t ask him to do that. So does that mean I can put a pool in my neighbors’ backyard while they are out of town, and I’m magically entitled to live with them?”
“Exactly. This just blows my mind. You should be able to call the police and say you broke up with your boyfriend and he won’t leave your house, and they should remove him from the premises. Period. I mean … could you get a restraining order against him? Surely they can’t let someone live in your house if they pose a danger to you.”