To her surprise, he choked on a laugh at that. “So you’re saying it’s not even a little bit of an all-powerful force?”
She giggled. Couldn’t possibly help it. The warm, ironic amusement in his eyes was simply too irresistible. “Not even a little bit. I’m sorry to tell you, but your dick is just a dick.”
They smiled at each other, and an anxious tension in her chest and belly relaxed fully.
“Okay,” he said, hiking up his jeans, which had been sliding low on his hips. “I know it’s weird between us, and if you don’t want to talk to me, I can respect that. But I don’t want...” He cleared his throat. “What happened on Saturday meant something to me.”
She held his gaze for several moments before she finally nodded. Admitted, “It meant something to me too.”
“So why can’t we—?”
“Jacob, you know why. It took me a long time to get over you before, and I’m not sure I want to go down that road again.”
“I get that. I really do. But maybe this time—”
The jolt of fear she experienced at his thick tone and the look in his eyes refused to let him finish the thought. “I don’t know if I even want to try.”
He didn’t move for a few seconds. Then gave a jerky nod.
“I’m sorry, Jacob. I really am. But I’m not the same person I was. Neither are you. I have a life here. A good one. And I’m not going to sabotage it with some long-lost teenage daydream about you being...” She shook her head, her voice breaking. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean for this to hurt, but I need to do what’s best for me.”
He gave another stiff nod. He was tense until he let out a long, purposeful exhale. “Okay. I get it. I blew it.”
For some reason the brief, no-nonsense words almost made her cry.
“I don’t want things to be bad between us, Jacob. It never felt right that things were so... so unresolved. So... so do you think we could... I don’t know... try to be friends? Or something?” There was an obvious plea in her tone, and she knew he would hear it.
His face twisted briefly before he said, “Of course we can. You were the first real friend I ever had, Ria. I’d hate if I couldn’t even have that with you.”
“Then let’s just work on that. The rest of it... it’s too messy. So let’s just work on being friends.” The words felt right to her. Safe. Secure in a way she’d been missing since Jacob’s return.
He didn’t look happy, but he also didn’t look like he was aching or pained. Just slightly poignant as he murmured, “Friends are better than nothing at all.” Then he added with a quirk of his mouth, “So does this mean you’ll answer my calls?”
A WEEK LATER, RIA WAS working on an arrangement in the back room in the shop while Skye was sitting on the other worktable, swinging her legs and watching.
“I still can’t believe you’re friends now,” Skye said, her blue eyes wide and round and her mouth quivering with amusement.
“What can’t you believe? We talked some things out. We got some closure from before. And now we’re both trying. Adults can usually work things out if they try.”
“Maybe.” Skye sounded rather dubious. “But when two people are as hot for each other as you two obviously are, friendship is kind of hard to balance.”
“We’re not that hot for each other.” Ria carefully avoided her friend’s eyes as she spoke that bald-faced lie.
“Oh please. Last night when we were all hanging out at Madeline’s, the sexual tension between the two of you was off the charts. I was embarrassed to just be around you.”
Ria rolled her eyes, but she didn’t bother to argue.
It would have been a losing argument.
For the past week, she and Jacob had talked a lot. They’d gotten together a few times. She’d gone over to help him work on the house more than once. And last night she’d invited him to a casual get-together at Madeline’s. Things were going really well. They were remembering what had drawn them together all those years ago.
But the one thing she hadn’t counted on was the sheer force of attraction that kept rising up when she was around him, stronger than ever now that the emotional land mines had been mostly dealt with.
She didn’t want to just hang out with Jacob. She wanted to wrap herself around his big body and never let him go.
It was very inconvenient when she was convinced it was safer to just be friends.
“But if you guys want to pretend it’s not there,” Skye said, obviously reading the conflict on Ria’s face, “then you just go ahead and do it. Sometimes pretend is safer. And sometimes if we act like we feel a certain way, we will eventually learn to feel it.”
Ria turned toward her friend at that. “You really think that’s true?”
“Sure.” Skye shrugged dramatically. “It doesn’t always work, but it sometimes does. When I don’t feel confident, I’ll act confident until I start to feel that way. When I feel jealous about something, I’ll act like I’m not jealous until the jealousy goes away. So sometimes it works.”
“So if I just act like I’m not on the verge of clawing off Jacob’s clothes at any moment of the day, maybe I’ll start feeling that way?”
Skye giggled. “I guess it’s worth a try.” She paused before she added, “But don’t blame me if it doesn’t work. I’ve never used this strategy for that kind of feeling before.”
“What kind of feeling?”
The new voice came from the doorway and surprised them so much that they both jumped.
Ria relaxed when she saw it was Fitz, wearing his normal beat-up army jacket and looking like he just rolled out of bed. “Nothing,” she said with a smile. “Thanks for stopping by.”
“Everything okay here?” he asked, looking between her and Skye. “You look
