Alexa got to work the next morning groggy but blissful. In the middle of the night she’d woken up to him kissing the back of her neck and turned to give him access to the rest of her body. This time it was slower, gentler, quieter, but the fireworks had gone off just the same.
He’d refused to let her drive him to the airport that morning. He’d insisted it was too early and she should get some of the sleep that he’d robbed her of. She hadn’t gotten any of that sleep—she’d jumped in the shower as soon as they’d kissed good-bye at her front door—but she’d loved him for saying so.
She sank into her desk chair and barely managed to avoid spilling her coffee as that thought sank in.
Loved him? Wait, no, that’s not what she’d meant. She couldn’t feel that way about him. That way was surely headed for heartbreak with a guy like Drew.
But he clearly cared about her, right? He jumped on a plane to come see her for less than twelve hours; he had to feel something for her. Or was she just trying to believe he felt something for her because, despite what she was trying to tell herself, she felt something for him?
Damn it, this wasn’t what was supposed to happen. This thing was supposed to be easy and fun and light. Maybe she could ignore these feelings and hope they went away?
Should she try to talk to Drew about how she felt? She shook her head. The only time she’d tried to talk about their relationship to Drew it had been an unmitigated disaster. She didn’t want to go through that again. Plus, she’d almost certainly scared him away after all of that race talk the night before. White men hated it when you reminded them of their privilege, she knew that all too well.
But what was she supposed to do with all of these feelings now?
Bury them in a corner, drink her damn coffee, and stop having major life crises at eight a.m., that’s what.
She managed to distract herself with work for most of the day, but by five thirty she gave up and called Maddie. She knew Maddie would tell her what to do.
• • •
Drew walked into the hospital straight from the airport, thankful he’d had an extra shirt in his gym bag so he didn’t have to stop at home. Now that he was away from Alexa, he felt stupid about dropping everything to go see her, even though it had felt great in the moment. Good God, he was an adult, he’d been a doctor for four years, and yet he got bad news about one of his patients and flew five hundred miles just to hug one woman?
He was getting in too deep. It was going to hurt way too much when it ended. It was going to hurt even more when she hated him. Like Molly had.
He never should have flown up there. The whole thing . . . it had been too much. Too intimate.
Part of him wanted to flee, never answer her text messages again, never see her again, forget he’d ever known her.
But the thought of never seeing Alexa again made his stomach clench. He’d only left her this morning, and he still couldn’t wait to see her this weekend.
Of course the first person he saw when he stepped off the elevator was Carlos.
“Hey, man, you look like shit,” was Carlos’s friendly greeting. He paused and his smile fell. “Oh wait. I heard about Jack. That sucks. I’m sorry.”
Drew shrugged. What was he supposed to say? That’s okay? It wasn’t, really, and Carlos knew that. So he said nothing.
“Where were you last night?” Carlos followed him into his office. “I called you, but your phone was off.”
He thought about lying, but he knew Carlos would find out eventually. He was like that.
“I went up to Berkeley.”
Carlos stopped halfway into the chair. Damn it, he should have lied; he knew Carlos would make this into a bigger deal than it was.
“Oh? Hard day, you needed a hug from your girl?” He settled into the chair and looked up at Drew with a smug expression. Drew was too tired and irritable for this.
“Whatever, that wasn’t it.” He shrugged and smirked. “I just needed some stress relief that I couldn’t get from basketball. You know how it is.”
Carlos laughed, and for a minute, Drew thought Carlos would let it go.
“That’s how you’re going to play it? It was just a booty call, right? Give me a break, you like this girl. You flew to the other end of the state to see her! Don’t get me wrong—she’s great, and I approve completely, but . . .”
Drew cut him off before he went too far.
“Okay, I knew you’d do this. Calm down. It was just an hour flight. I’ve driven to the Valley to get laid before, same difference.”
Carlos rolled his eyes. Why was he friends with this guy again?
“First of all, no, you haven’t.”
Okay, fine, he was right. Not that Drew was going to let him know that.
“Second, there’s nothing wrong with going to hang out with your girl when you’re upset. I’m glad she was there for you, man.” Carlos took a sip of his coffee.
Drew shook his head.
“That’s not how it was.” That was exactly how it was. “I don’t know why you keep acting like this thing with Alexa is some big deal, anyway. It’s probably not going to last all that much longer.”
Carlos stared at him.
“Why wouldn’t it? What did you do?”
Drew resisted the urge to flip him off, but only because a nurse walked by his open door.
“I didn’t do anything! It’s just . . . it’s been going on for a while; we’ve had a good run. Better to end things while they’re still good.”
Carlos’s phone buzzed and he glanced at it, then back up at Drew.
“No offense, man, but don’t be such a fucking idiot. I’ve seen the way you look at this girl. I’ve never seen you look at anyone or anything like you look at her. And you’re just going to throw all of that away for some bullshit reason? Because you’re too scared for something real?”
Carlos checked his phone again and stood up.
“I gotta go. But dude, stop being the idiot you always have been.”
• • •
Maddie was borrowing her car for the weekend, so she drove Alexa to the airport on Friday night.
“How’re you feeling?” Maddie asked.
Could she even describe how she felt about seeing Drew this weekend? Excited to see him, on edge about what the weekend could bring, relaxed at just the thought of being around him . . .
“Nervous.”
She had to talk to him. She had to know what was going on and how he felt before it was too late. Though she was afraid that ship had sailed.
“It was a lot easier when I wasn’t overthinking this.”
Maddie turned to her at the stoplight.
“Didn’t we both know that that could only last a weekend with you? Maybe a long weekend, maximum.”
They both laughed.
“Do you want a pep talk, or do you want to talk about something else?” Maddie asked her.
She thought for a second. A pep talk would just hype her up too much.
“Something else, please. Tell me about what’s-her-name, your crazy new client.”
Maddie laughed.
“Oh my God, Alexa. Did I tell you what she wanted the other day? She needed cute exercise clothes, because she always runs into people she knows at the gym, right? But instead of Lululemon, she wanted exercise clothes that no one else has, so I had to dive into the world of $500 yoga pants and $200 sports bras, and let me tell you, that is a crazy world.”
They gossiped the rest of the way to the airport, and Maddie hugged her when she got out of the car.
“Good luck this weekend, Lex. Thanks for letting me use your car, and have a great trip.”
She hugged Maddie back.
“Anytime, Mads, you know that. And thanks.”
• • •
Drew left straight from the hospital to pick Alexa up at the airport. Carlos high-fived him as he walked down the hall toward the elevator.
“You’ll be at Heather’s 4th of July party on Sunday, right?”
Drew nodded as he got in the elevator.
“See you there.”
Alexa walked out of the terminal just as he drove up, and he jumped out of the car to kiss her. Okay, maybe he was being hasty about ending things. Maybe Carlos was right. He’d just been overtired and still upset about Jack on Wednesday morning. They could keep this going a little longer.
He squeezed her hand as he got on the freeway toward his house. Did she look tense? She looked tense. Should he ask why?
“Hungry?” That was an easier question.
She shrugged off her cardigan. She was still in business mode, wearing one of those conservative dresses that he secretly loved. “Starving. I barely had time for lunch, and I’ve depleted all of my office snacks this week.”
“You want to go straight to dinner, then? That burger place again, maybe?”
She turned toward him and grabbed his knee. Man, he loved it every time she touched him. Yeah, they could definitely keep this thing going for a while longer.
“Yes, and can we get that Tater Tot casserole this time? I can’t promise to eat it all, but it looked amazing.”
Apparently, many people had had the same idea for dinner that night. They stood together at the bar while they waited for a table, drinking beer and talking about everything and nothing.
He didn’t talk about Jack. He’d already texted her that the test results had come back positive, and he didn’t want to bring both of them down. She didn’t bring up her program, and he didn’t ask, although he was dying to know whether she was going to talk to her sister about it.
Instead, he told her about the kid who kept throwing things across the exam room and giggling, and how he had to step out in the hallway to laugh. She told him about the naked protestors who kept following the mayor around. As they laughed, the tense look on her face relaxed. Maybe it was the beer, but he hoped it was being with him.
Just as he was about to ask her if she wanted another beer, he heard his name. He turned and saw his friends Robin and Lucy walking toward him.
“Hey!” He hugged them both, then turned to introduce Alexa to them.
“Hey guys, this is my . . . this is Alexa. Alexa, meet Lucy and Robin.” He’d almost slipped and called her his girlfriend. How the hell had that happened?
No one had seemed to notice his flub, and Alexa was chatting away with Lucy, so he turned to Robin.
“You going to Heather’s party on Sunday?”
“Yeah, you?”
Just as he nodded, the hostess called his name, so they said their good-byes and followed her to the table.
• • •
This is my . . . What was he going to say? What was going to be the end of that sentence? Alexa guessed it didn’t matter, because he hadn’t finished it, so whatever he’d been about to say, he hadn’t really meant. Still, she spent the entire time they were at dinner with that sentence fragment running through her head.
Okay, maybe not the entire time. The rest of the time, she compared herself and the dowdy navy blue sheath dress she’d worn to work that day to Lucy and Robin in their cute little sundresses. And her didn’t-look-good-in-a-cute-little-sundress-anyway figure to their nonexistent hips and thighs. And the salads on their table to her Tater Tot casserole.
Good God, she was a disaster. Why would she even think that he would finish that sentence the way she wanted him to?
“Monroe, is everything okay? You look worried about something.” Drew leaned over and smoothed out the furrow between her eyebrows with his thumb. She couldn’t help but smile when he did that.
She almost asked him all of the questions in her head but decided against it. It wasn’t the right time. She’d been stressed all week; she needed to relax tonight.
Plus, what would happen if all of his answers were the wrong ones? She’d spend the rest of the weekend miserable and pretending to smile?
“It’s fine. I mean, I’m fine. I was just trying to decide between another beer or a glass of wine.”
They woke up the next morning wrapped around each other, the cool ocean breeze blowing in on them from his open window. She must have stirred, because his hand moved from her hip to her breast.
“Good morning,” he said against her ear. He caressed her body and she sighed in response.
“Mmm, she likes that. Weird, I thought I heard someone say she couldn’t take it anymore just a few hours ago.”
She held his hand in place when he tried to move it.
“If you heard that, and I’m not confirming that you did, whoever said that probably said ‘until morning’ at the end there but it was muffled somehow. In a pillow, maybe.”
He laughed and kissed her ear, her cheek, her neck, as his fingers kept moving. Okay, he definitely enjoyed some things about her body, whether it was built for little sundresses or not.
“Coffee?” she said into the pillow a while later.
He turned her over and smiled down at her, his eyes roaming over her from her waist to the top of her head. She pulled his head down to hers and kissed him along his jawline.
“How about”—he turned his head and returned the kiss—“while I make coffee, you get ready so we can go to breakfast?”
His hand was on her hip, his thumb drawing figure eights on her hip bone, and his eyes were locked on hers. Between all of that, she was powerless to say no to anything he asked.
• • •
After breakfast at Drew’s favorite diner, they stumbled back into his apartment and collapsed on the couch.
“Good Lord, why have you never taken me to that place before?” Alexa asked him. “I’ve never had pancakes that good.”
He laughed.
“I knew you’d like the pancakes, even though the biscuits are my favorite.”
He pulled out her ponytail so he could run his fingers through her hair, and she sighed and rested her head against his shoulder.
“Monroe?”
She turned and smiled at him, but she looked anxious again, like she had the night before.
Maybe she needed to get work done? Yeah, that was probably it. She always needed to get work done.
“I was maybe going to go for a run. Did you . . . is that cool? You’ll be okay here for a while, right?”
She turned away from him and sat up.
“Yeah, that’s fine. I can get some work done while you’re gone.”
Yeah, he’d figured. He kissed her again as he stood up to go change into his running clothes. When he came back into the living room, her laptop was on her lap and she had that worried look on her face again. Still.
“Everything okay?”
She jumped at the sound of his face and looked up.
“Oh . . . yeah, fine. Just checking my email.”
He didn’t quite believe that. He wanted to sit down next to her and ask more questions, find out what was really upsetting her. Or was it that she would rather email with her buddy Theo than talk to him? But her eyes were back on her screen, not him. He’d been dismissed.
“Okay. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
“Okay.” She didn’t look up as he shut the door.
• • •
Had he wanted her to go running with him? And had he changed his mind once he looked at her? Did he want to say that they should both go running after eating all that food but decided that would hurt her feelings? Why had she been so filled with hope when he said “Monroe?” like that? What did she think he was going to say?
Was she going to drive herself insane asking herself questions like this all weekend? Signs point to yes.
She took a shower to clear her head, pulled on a tank top and yoga pants, and got back on the couch to check her email for real.
Forty-five minutes later, he burst through the front door, his face pink, his shirt sticking to his chest, and holy shit, she wanted to pull his clothes off immediately.
“How was your run?” she asked him.
He tugged his shirt off and wiped his face with it. Now she really couldn’t stop staring at him.
“You changed.” His chest was glistening, and his dark brown chest hairs stuck to his body. And those shorts . . . Did he have anything on under those shorts? She put her laptop on the coffee table.
“Mmmhmm, I took a shower.”
He kicked his shoes into the corner of the room and took a step toward her.
“If you keep looking at me that way, I’m going to pull you into the shower with me in about thirty seconds flat.”
With him closer to her now, her head was just about even with his waist.
“Ten seconds.”
She hooked her thumbs around his waistband and pulled his shorts down.
It took closer to fifteen seconds, but only because she stopped to throw off her clothes before he turned on the water. Thank goodness she’d packed her blow-dryer.