My hands still.
Why do I want to text her?
It’s to update her on the Ryder situation, that’s all. It’s a courtesy.
I told her I would. I’m fulfilling my promise. I want her checked off my list so I don’t think about her for the rest of the day.
I shoot off the text, keeping it short and succinct.
Charlie
It’s handled.
Good. She’s off my plate until Saturday.
Jessica
The way my lower belly dips from Charlie’s name on my screen is embarrassing. Normally, when I get a text from a guy, I’m neutral at best, eye-rolling at worst, so this leap of excitement is worrisome.
I read the two short words then turn my phone over on my desk.
No response is necessary. If he had anything more to say, he would have said it. I return to my computer screen, refocusing on the email I’d been composing.
Two minutes go by.
I haven’t typed a word.
He’s distracting me. Again.
I’d never admit it, even to Hailey, but I’ve accepted the truth.
I am completely obsessed with Charlie Radcliffe. How could I not be? We barely know each other, but he chose me over my brother.
I have to thaw a little, right?
That doesn’t mean I have to text him.
It doesn’t mean I have to give in to the pull.
I reach for my phone, then put my fingers back on the keyboard.
No! It’s time to forget about him and finish the email outlining my current deadlines and the cases I’m working on for my successor.
But I don’t compose. I don’t type.
Instead, I think of Charlie glaring down at me last night in the bar.
The sound of his voice telling me what a good girl I am as his hands played over my body.
My skin grows impossibly tighter.
Oh my god, this is ridiculous.
I am a grown woman. I’m smart and accomplished. I’m being handed an entire legal department to build from the ground up in a growing city not stuck in the 1950s.
Yet I feel like a giddy teenager.
I need to go back to work.