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Focus, Garner. I told myself. My skin tickled as it rubbed against my mate’s leg. I had to put Joss, my mate, out of my head, and treat him as the consultant he was.

“Let’s do this because time is running out.”

10

JOSS

It was time to go back to the real world. No more nice rooms with only one bed. No more arms wrapped around me all night long. No more Garner and I spending all of our time together. Nope. We were going back to our normal life.

I was dreading it.

There was no part of me that wanted to leave our room to go to our meetings, much less leaving it for the last time. It had been like a private oasis—just the two of us, tucked into this tiny, borrowed slice of just us—and now it was like we were being thrown into a tub of ice water.

There was a possibility I was being a wee bit dramatic about the whole thing, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to be grumpy about it, to sulk, to do all the unproductive things one does when they’re disappointed. But instead, I slipped on a happy face and suggested we go to lunch after the closing meeting at eleven.

It wasn’t the same as hiding out from real life in our room, but it meant we’d get that much more time.

We ended up at a little sandwich place across the street. It was nothing special, but it was fast, and we didn’t have much time if we wanted to get home according to plan. Which I didn’t, but I could hardly approach that subject.

The shop was loud, crowded, the kind of place that seemed to funnel every sound right into your ears. It was annoying but better than the alternative, which was to already be on our drive home.

We smushed ourselves into a tiny table for two. Our knees kept brushing under the table, not in some flirty, intentional way—just because there literally wasn’t space not to. I didn’t move mine, not wanting to lose the contact. This might be the closest I’d get to him again.

My sandwich was... fine, I guess. It tasted like… a…sandwich. But I could barely pay attention to what I was chewing. My entire focus was on the man in front of me—on his face, the way his brow crinkled as he concentrated on unwrapping his food, the way he smiled at me when he caught me looking. It was safe to say that I had officially become an expert in watching Garner. It was my new second-favorite thing. The first-favorite thing… not the stuff I wanted to do in public.

There was so much I wanted to say.

And I would say it. But not today. And definitely not here.

I liked him. I more than liked him. I wanted him for more than just this trip, more than a weekend in a hotel room. I wanted to find out what it would feel like to have him be part of my regular life. I wanted to text him about silly things and fall asleep next to him without wondering how many hours we had left beforecheckout or if there was enough gas in the company car we’d taken.

But reality was here again, despite my best efforts to pretend otherwise. It had slipped into the tiny booth beside us like a third wheel, and part of that reality was that he’d hired my company. Nothing we did was appropriate. In fact, it was the stuff lawyers drooled over and HR had nightmares about.

I needed to finish the job. After that… maybe we could be something. Maybe we’d become more than something. Or maybe we wouldn’t. Maybe this was all he wanted. There were far too many maybes for me.

I didn’t like not knowing. Not that I had a choice in it. Because we hadn’t talked about any of it. Not one single thing.

Which was ridiculous, considering how good he was at communicating during sex. Every step of the way, he made sure I was comfortable, checked in with every new position, every caress. But the rest of it? The real-life stuff? It was like it didn’t exist between us. And I was just as much to blame. I hadn’t asked, hadn’t nudged us toward that conversation.

Because I didn’t want to risk it. I didn’t want to hear him say no, say that this was a one-time thing, that it didn’t mean anything. What would I have done then? Cried? Pretended I didn’t care? Lied and said, “Yeah, me neither?”

There was no good outcome there. So instead, I shoved it all down and tried to pretend it didn’t matter. But that was getting exponentially harder the closer we got to going home.

“You didn’t like your sandwich,” Garner said, drawing me out of my spiral. He was looking down at my barely touched food.

“It’s fine,” I said, which was always the biggest lie.

“Fine is never fine,” he said, starting to stand. “Let me get you something else?—”

I grabbed his hand. “No, really. I’m fine. I’m just not a big lover of the travel part of traveling.”

What I didn’t say was: I’m not a big lover of the going-back-alone part. That I was going back to my life, I was going back to my place, a place that suddenly felt too quiet, too empty. A place that needed him. What was it about this man?

“Thanks for coming with me.” Garner sounded like he was going to say more and then didn’t.

When the silence started to get awkward, I finally responded. I wasn’t sure what more I wanted him to say. No, that was a lie. Not too deep down, I knew. I just wasn’t ready to admit it yet.

“Sure. It was a lot to dig into, but I think it was good.”