- Gemma -
I woke in a panic when I realized there were heavy arms around me, but when I saw it was Alex, I relaxed again.
Yet instead of comfort or happiness, it was guilt that overwhelmed me next.
I mean, considering what I went through with Ray—what I survived—wasn’t it a bit soon for me to be waking up with a man in my bed? Especially a man I had a working relationship with?
The only silver lining was that I didn’t think Alex realized what he said. At least, he hadn’t repeated it or called me out for not saying it back.
Still, his words wouldn’t stop echoing in my head, and no matter how much I wanted them to make me happy, they didn’t.
Instead, I felt anxious and inadequate. Because not only did I not believe he loved me, I didn’t believe he ever could, which filled me with a heavy sadness that was at odds with the peaceful expression on his sleeping face.
Adding to my angst, I genuinely didn’t know if I loved him back. After all, my other experiences of “love” had only led to pain, heartbreak, and betrayal. So I didn’t trust myself to use the word, much less recognize the feeling.
I slipped out from under Alex’s arm and crept silently from the room, grabbing my robe off the back of the door on the way out. Then I shut myself in the small bathroom down the hall and looked in the mirror.
Why did I find it so hard to believe Alex could fall for me? Why did the mere possibility petrify me from head to toe?
And then it hit me. The stakes. They were too high.
It was one thing for a stranger to not love me back, one thing to get rejected by a man who only knew the grown-up version of myself I put forward. But with Alex, it was different. He knew the fragile adolescence from which I’d come, and while that should’ve made me more trusting of him, it only made me warier.
Because a rejection from him would hurt so much more.
Plus, I was supposed to be focusing on myself now, learning to be strong and secure in my singledom. Not jeopardizing my mental health and career for carnal gratification.
I splashed some cold water over my face and stood dripping over the sink, watching the clear streams swirl down the drain as I remembered that my favorite employee had fingered my asshole while I came last night.
I turned off the water and held a hand towel over my face, finally understanding why people weren’t supposed to fuck around with co-workers. Shit. How was I even going to face him after the way he’d tossed my body around last night, fucking me so good I couldn’t even think straight?
Maybe I should fire him. Or transfer him to another location, at least. Would we have a better chance then?
Ugh. We had no chance if I couldn’t tame my runaway thoughts, which seemed determined to sabotage me at every turn.
So what if a handsome, built, kind man liked me? It wasn’t the end of the world. Just my world.
I lowered the lid on the toilet and sat down, resting my elbows on my knees as I tried to make sense of the situation.
Obviously, steering clear of each other the previous week hadn’t done any good. It only made our chemistry more explosive when we got behind closed doors. And as freeing as it was that I couldn’t hold a thought in my head when he got me naked, I had responsibilities and obligations that I couldn’t let slide just because I was finally getting laid again.
Finally.
And laid so good. By someone I truly believed would never hurt me. Not in the ways I’d been hurt before, anyway.
But something wasn’t right.
I knew something wasn’t right, and even though I didn’t know what it was, I couldn’t ignore the fact that my intuition was usually pretty good. So what was it? Was he using me? Was he after my job? Was I the butt of some kind of bet?
Why couldn’t I accept that what he’d said—that he loved me—was, at the very least, a nice thing to hear? Why did it seem like something was off? Like that wasn’t the whole story? Like there was something he wasn’t telling me?
And why was I hiding in the bathroom when there was a gorgeous man in my bed, a man who made me feel safe and beautiful and smart? A man who seemed genuinely secure in himself despite my recent professional success.
Seriously, God, hadn’t I spent enough of my life hiding in bathrooms? Wasn’t it time to face things head on? Or had I learned nothing in the last ten years?
Maybe I was still the insecure fat girl who just couldn’t deal? Who doubted every second of happiness that drifted her way?
No.
I refused to be that girl anymore. She was dead. Gone. Nobody. Replaced by someone infinitely more loveable and successful.
So why did I feel neither?
And then it hit me.
The whole thing was too good to be true. Of course. It seemed so obvious now. This many things couldn’t go right for me all at once. This was nothing more than a waking dream, a dream from which I would wake any minute.
And when the sleep was eventually swept from my eyes and the dust well and truly settled, Alex would be gone. And he’d be nothing but a memory all over again.
Because the chubby girl with the smart shoes doesn’t get the guy in the end.
She’s lucky if she ever has the kind of sex I had last night.
Ugh. Now there was a depressing thought.
On the plus side, I felt energized by my new perspective, which was that I should just enjoy the situation while it lasted and not take everything so seriously. Why stress about whether he really loved me or not when it was just an expletive he’d blurted post-orgasm because his release was so sweet?
Besides, a fling between boss and employee might be forgivable. God knows men got away with it all the time. So why not me?
As long as he was fine with it, why shouldn’t we have some harmless fun?
Except, as much as I tried to convince myself it was harmless, I knew it wasn’t.
My heart was too fragile for any relationship to be harmless. And my life? Well, it was like a sweater with so many loose strings it could unravel any minute, leaving me completely exposed.
And that was the cold, hard truth. I was too vulnerable to play fuckbuddies with this boy I’d crushed on since the first time his eyes fell to my neck.
And no matter how hard I wracked my imagination, I couldn’t envision an ending where I wasn’t hurt all over again.
Except when it came to Alex, the bruises would be internal, and they would be deep.
Who knows if I’d ever recover?
All I knew was that love—if that was what this was—couldn’t be trusted.