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Ishouldbe careful.
But I was beginning to think it was too late.
I felt things for Derrick I shouldn’t. This…relationship had a time limit, and it wasn’t even close to real to begin with.
A sly voice in my head whispered that it’d felt real when he had his mouth on me.
Sure it had. Derrick had made it clear he wanted to sleep with me, but Derrick was a player. A man who had only one use for women in his personal life.
I didn’t want that for my life.
What I did want included a best friend who wasn’t pissed at me. I shut off my computer and went to see Jami. She gave me a guarded look as I came over to her desk, but didn’t tell me to leave.
“I’m sorry for snapping at you.”
She raised an eyebrow, and I grabbed her hand.
“Want to grab a drink or two? Happy hour has started at our favorite pub.”
Her expression softened but she still didn’t say anything.
“Please?”
A smile broke across her face, and she nodded. “I just finished. Let’s go.”
With a sigh of relief, I walked to the elevator with my best friend and vowed that I wasn’t going to let Derrick screw up the relationships in my life just because he could make me orgasm like nobody else.
EIGHTEEN
DERRICK
It wasstupid to be nervous about spending the Fourth of July with Jessica’s family and friends. Logically, I knew that. Maybe if this was a real relationship, it would’ve been different. But it wasn’t. Both Jessica and I knew that. And it wasn’t even like it was one of the important holidays either.
Yet here I was, standing on the porch of a house in Brooklyn—I had to park almost a quarter mile away—waiting for somebody to answer the door.
When Jessica had invited me to a cookout she regularly attended with some family and friends every Fourth of July, I wanted to say no. It would have been more fun to spend the afternoon on my boat on the river or maybe even farther out, but when she told me the cookout was a family tradition and she never missed it, I knew I could either spend Fourth of July with her and her family…or alone.
Oddly, being alone had less appeal than usual.
Plus, if she wanted me to spend time with the people she cared about, joining in on a family tradition, it had to mean something, right?
Some of the nerves drained away, and I was smiling when the door opened. A skinny blond teen boy looked me over, and didn’t seem impressed. “Yeah?”
“I’m looking for Jessica Ellis.”
She appeared over his shoulder, a wide smile curving her lips. “I’ve got this, Brayden.”
He shrugged and turned away, walking with that slouchy dragging stride teenage boys have nailed to perfection.
“My cousin,” Jessica said with a faint smile. “He lights up the world, huh?”
“Like a spotlight.” I looked her up and down, mind doing a slow meltdown at seeing her in faded denim cut-offs over a cherry red bikini. “You look delicious.”
She turned pink and glanced over her shoulder before looking back at me. “Hush.”
“Hush?” I grinned.
Shooting a look past her into the house, I saw that it looked mostly empty, so I hooked a finger in the waistband of her shorts and tugged her onto the porch. She pulled the door mostly shut behind her, her eyes wide, cheeks flushed.