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Katie paced around with the phone until it started ringing.
“Wil!” Katie gasped.
“Katie.” Wil smiled. She was wearing what looked like a white button-down under a very plain light-blue sweater with a V-neck. Imagining Wil wearing work slacks with that sweater-shirt combo made Katie horny, which had to be proof she wasn’t fooling herself about this inconvenient but privately delicious attraction to Wil.
“So I have an assignment for you,” Katie said.
Wil wrinkled her adorable nose. “Okay.”
“You have to take a late lunch today and do the Kettle’s thing.”
“Katie.” Wil sighed.
“Youhave to,have to. Because I called your mom.”
“You talked to Beanie? Oh my God.” She looked away from the phone, then back at Katie. “I can’t do the Kettle’s thing today. They wouldn’t even be expecting me.”
“But they are! Beanie’s telling her friend.”
“Oh.” Wil said this with a hint of frustration. “That is…” She looked at the ceiling.
“Do it,” Katie said. “Would it help if I flashed you right now? As encouragement?” Katie heard a mental tape rewinding in her head, her Reasonable Katie brain horrified, and her neck went hot.
“I’m at work.” But Wil was grinning. She already looked 40 percent less irritated, and also like she completely knew Katie was joking.
Which made Katie want to not have been joking.
“Your being at work is what makes it hot.” Katie unbuttoned one button of her flannel, watching Wil. Even if she was toeing the line of this teasing exchange, she was an actress, so her body was, in part, an instrument. She hadn’t expected anything would happen toher,doing a quick flash to make Wil laugh or maybe blush, but now that her flannel was unfastened and her breasts were nakedjust under it, Katie felt heat race up from her belly button to her throat, and she almost couldn’t breathe. “But I’ll only do this if you’d enthusiasticallylikefor me to flash you over FaceTime on a Thursday morning.”
“Katie,” Wil said, softly. “You don’t have to.” Wil’s smile waslovely.
“Now I really want to, for real.” Katie was shaking. She hadn’t ever done this before. She’d managed to dig her heels in when Ben requested she do things like this, suspicious of what he’d do with any images, and toward the end he’d taken pictures of her that he shouldn’t have without asking, making her glad she’d nevergivenhim anything like that.
Trusting someone, wanting to, made her skin so hot.
All reactions that belonged to her.
She slid the flannel off her shoulder and felt the cold air of the basement on her bare skin. “Would you like me to?”
“Katie,” Wil whispered, then looked at the ceiling. “Yes.”
Katie slid one side of the shirt back, just enough, shuddering when the placket grazed her nipple, then pulled it back into place. “I’ll see you later. Go to Kettle’s. It’s been a long time since I went. Maybe they have something edible there now.”
“They don’t.” Wil smiled. Her cheeks were bright red.
Because of Katie.
Because they had both just admitted something to each other.
She really, really hoped she had a month.
Katie disconnected and collapsed on the love seat. She closed her eyes and felt Trois jump onto her stomach, three hard feet pressing in. She petted her cat and thought about herself as though she were a character, the morning she’d had, the day spread out in front of her.
It wasn’t, maybe, the kind of story she could tell Madelynn or April. But Katie liked this story for herself.