“I was happy when we were together. I was miserable when she left.” He shrugs.
“Are you still miserable now?”
“Only when she’s around and totally brushing me off.” He follows this with a mirthless laugh.
“I know how that feels,” I mumble to myself, alarmed when Keats raises an intrigued brow at me. I shake my head and he luckily lets me off without prying.
“It sucks extra when she and Byron are right in front of me,” he finishes.
We walk the rest of the way to his car in silence, our steps lit only by the street lamps that line the footpath at regular intervals.
“So, can you arrange to be busy on Monday?” he asks me.
“Isabella would cancel on you if I do. I guarantee it.”
“She doesn’t trust me that much?”
“She’s not stupid.”
“Shit.” He bites the tip of his thumb, thinking. When we reach his car, he unlocks the sporty Audi to put his gear in the tiny boot. “Maybe you can beg off once we’re all here. She’ll be less likely to leave then.”
“Remind me again why I would do that for you?”
“Because we’re buddies,” he says, putting a friendly arm over my shoulders and squeezing me to his side.
I stiffen at the contact as my whole body tingles in response.
Keats misreads my reaction and immediately pulls away, mumbling an apology for touching me as he lets us both into his sports car.
Chapter 22
Early-October
Is that a dent on my wall? I study the mark on the plasterboard just above my headboard from where I lie trying to catch my breath in the middle of the bed. It’s the first week of October and the early morning spring sun is high enough to illuminate my entire bedroom clearly. I tap my bare heel against the surface, causing a hollow thud to sound. It’s pretty solid. Maybe that’s not a dent. A smudge I’ve never noticed before?
“What are you doing?” a very laidback, satiated male voice whispers in my ear, before the owner of said voice rolls off me with a satisfied sigh, fingertips just touching the centre of his own chest as if to check if his heart rate has returned to normal yet.
My breasts instantly miss my man-blanket. “Just checking the wall. Maybe I shouldn’t have braced my feet against it.”
Neil chuckles, the sound low and intimate. He leans in and kisses my shoulder, his five o’clock shadow pleasantly grazing my skin. He was cleanly shaven last night. It’s amazing how fast his face fuzz has reappeared. “Next time we’ll face the other way.”
“Next time?” We’ve barely slept since we started tearing up my bedroom last night. He drove me home from the vegetarian restaurant—our third date—and well, we didn’t say goodbye at the door.
“Give me fifteen minutes,” he says.
The mention of time has me checking my bedside clock. I sit upright in surprise when I see it’s already seven-thirty.
“I have something on at eight.”
“In the morning?”
“Uh-huh,” I say distractedly as I rush to my chest of drawers for some underwear.
“It’s Saturday.”
I nod on my way to the shower, relatively fine streaking across my bedroom absolutely naked. Surprising, considering Neil is on his stomach, watching me with a raised brow and interest in his eyes. I suck in my stomach for good measure and don’t relax my muscles—what muscles?—till I’m in the shower stall. Last night was the first time we did it—I’m not that comfortable around him yet.
Neil opens the cubicle’s sliding glass door a minute later just as I get the water temperature right. His gaze falls on my cold nipples, and the droplets there. My own eyes travel down his toned body. I can’t help but grin and get stuck on the evidence of his interest in me.
“I thought you said fifteen minutes?”
He answers me by stepping into the shower and closing the door behind him to keep the water in.
***
The door bell’s buzz cuts through the buzz still making every inch of me tingle as Neil finally turns off the water in the shower.
“Your eight o’clock?”
Shit. “I should’ve cancelled.”
“What is it?” he asks, grabbing me a towel so he can pat dry my breasts with an amused smile on his face.
“Driving lesson.” I take the towel off him and wrap it around my body. I pad down the cold hallway floor to press the button. “Hi, give me ten minutes.”
“Can you buzz me up?” Keats’ voice sounds tight.
“I’ll be down soon.”
“It’s hot down here, Hay-gen.”
“It’s only October—that’s spring.”
“Hay-gen, I could be up there now if you’d stop arguing.”
“Let the guy up,” Neil says behind me.
“Who’s that?” Keats quickly asks.
In response, I press the button to let him into the building. I take Neil by the arm and lead him down the hall to my bedroom where our clothes are.
“We need to get dressed.” I quickly throw on underwear, a denim skirt and a yellow top, stuffing my feet into sandals. I usually take more time to put together the attire I parade in front of Keats but I’m in a hurry and it’s better than him seeing me naked. Besides, after my night with Neil, my care factor for what Keats thinks of me is at an all-time low.
As for that little niggling feeling like I’ve cheated on him? Well, that’s totally misplaced.
I reach my front door on his third set of knocks.
“I heard you the first time,” I say, as I put my long, wet hair in a ponytail, though my irritation is softened as soon as he’s right in front of me again. Bastard. It’s so frustrating how my body and that barely used organ in my chest reacts when he’s around. Am I really this shallow? Weak at the knees because he wears jeans, and a white T-shirt better than any man I’ve ever met?
Keats hardly meets my gaze, instead looking over my shoulder and scanning my living room as he steps into
