“Always. Anyway, what’s up, Flash?”
The fact she used my childhood nickname was endearing and emotional and everything I told her came out in a rush.
“Colorado kissed me, and I’m having feelings.”
“He did what? And you’re what?”
“Before you say I’m his manny, I know that. Also before you say feelings are healthy, I have them but I don’t know what to do with them, and even if I kissed him back I wouldn’t do it properly, because I’m me. And, let’s be honest I’m not built for sex, let alone random sex with a man whose baby I’m looking after.”
“Wait, you’re thinking about sex, you’ve never ever… What is going on?”
“Tell me what the hell to do because I’ve tried to work out a formula and none of them fit.”
“Attraction isn’t a formula,” she finally said after a moment’s pause.
“I know that,” I lied, “I didn’t mean an actual formula.”
“Yes, you did.”
Damn it, she was right. I did mean an actual formula. Like man plus man plus hormones equals sex plus mess plus awkward conversations. Add a healthy dose of deterministic chaos and I was objectively assessing that attraction wasn’t as random as it might seem and that it was all systems and patterns. However, I couldn’t see the pattern and I didn’t like it one little bit.
“Okay,” I admitted, then sighed dramatically.
“Back to these feelings you’re having. Is he pressuring you? He kissed you, right? I mean, what is all that about? He’s a rich man, I looked him up. Did you know they pay him three million a year? A year! If he’s pressuring you then I’m getting a cab now and heading over to pick you up.”
“No, this isn’t about him, it’s me. I don’t know what to do. He actually asked me if it was okay to kiss me—”
“And what were you going to say? No? He’s your boss. Okay, ask him if I can visit, I’ll bring Emma, get a bus, and we can talk. If he says we can’t visit, and at the same time he’s pressuring you for sex, then I’ll get the cab instead, and break you out.”
My sister got the creative genes, which she always joked left all the science parts for me, but this had grown out of control fast. She was the one who spun stories and had a healthy and vivid imagination unconstrained by facts, but she sounded genuinely concerned.
“I’ll ask—”
“Go and ask now, and call me back.”
“Now?”
“Now, otherwise I’ll call the police. I’m going now, phone me back, you have ten minutes.”
She ended the call and I stared at my phone. What in hell’s name had happened there? I’d called to talk about feelings and suddenly she had this scenario where I was being kept against my will and having sexual advances thrust at me? She didn’t need to worry because the last thing I felt was threatened, but was I that bad at knowing my own mind that I wasn’t the one in control? I’d not researched Colorado, but he was a sexual being, and a jock, and my boss. I recall what I’d walked into that first day, and the way he’d padded around the house in soft silk and then later when he kissed me.
He asked me. I could have said no.
I knocked on the door to his bedroom and called his name but when he answered it was from behind me and not in his room at all. With an iPad under one arm and a hockey stick under the other, he took the remainder of the stairs to this floor at speed and slid to a halt next to me.
“Is Maddie okay?”
“Yes, she’s sleeping.”
He stared at me and I shrank a little under the weight of his gaze. “Are you okay?”
“I’d like to invite my sister to visit, with my niece.”
“Here?”
I pulled back my shoulders. “Yes.”
“Sure,” he said with a smile, “we can send a car for them. Barbecue! I love barbecue, although I won’t eat it, y’know I need to carb up, but… yeah… we can do that. I’ll get the band over, or maybe not, they can sometimes be too much, but you know they’re good guys. I’d love to meet your sister, and maybe your niece can play with Maddie.”
“She’s five—”
“Cool,” he tapped the stick to my shin gently. “I’m working, then we have the game the day after, so let’s do it tomorrow, early evening. Exciting.”
“Okay.”
“Was that it?” he prompted after a pause and I nodded. “Night.”
And with a wink he was gone in a swirl of silk and scent and I was left on the landing like an idiot, until it hit me that Natalie might be calling the cops, so I dashed back to my room to reassure her. She huffed a bit, commented on my tender heart, said she’d do some more research and then we organized a time, and she said goodnight. All I could think was that Colorado was going to be in for an interrogation tomorrow, and when she’d finished with him, she was going to start on me.
Somehow, it was decided that Simon would get a van, then take me and Maddie to pick up my sister and Emma and then swing by the practice facility to collect Colorado before heading home. With military precision, we ended up at my sister’s place at three sharp, and Natalie appeared at the door, giving me a wave and then hoisting a bag of what I knew would be Emma’s things up on her shoulder.
“That’s your sister?” Simon asked.
“Yes.”
“That woman there?”
I couldn’t see any other woman in the vicinity, so that was an easy answer. “Yes. That’s Natalie, and Emma her daughter, my niece.”
He wriggled a little more upright in his seat and pressed a hand to his already smoothed hair. “Okay then,” he murmured, and in a slick move he jumped out of the car, rounded
