Page 48 of In The Dark

“I’m not saying it’s simple, but maybe it’s time you stopped trying to convince yourself that you only want to be her friend.”

Jo’s heart ached deeply. She really didn’t know where she went from here. She had apologies to make, she knew that much, but she didn’t know if she could actually call Amelia to give that apology. She certainly couldn’t bring herself to meet face-to-face. “I think this is where I cut ties, Ada. I don’t want to, the thought of not seeing her anymore kills me, but…I can’t ever look at her again.”

“Oh, babe.”

“I have some thinking to do. Can I call you later?”

“Of course.” Ada yawned. “And Jo?”

“Y-yeah?”

She felt Ada smiling down the phone. “You didn’t fuck up. Everything will be okay.”

Jo hung up and stayed on the floor, her phone limp in her hand and her eyes fixed on nothing. Maybe it would turn out that Ada was right, but in this moment, she still felt like she was falling into the abyss.

And the only one who could catch her was the one she’d already lost her grip on.

Amelia was stretchedout on the couch in her home office, laptop balanced on her thighs, barely a paragraph into the project proposal she’d meant to finish this morning. She hadn’t been able to concentrate since she’d woken up, and even sleep had been hard to come by during the night.

She’d replayed it a dozen times in her head. Every breathless word and every broken moan. The way Jo had whimpered her name. She wasn’t sure if it was the most erotic thing that had ever happened to her or the most emotionally reckless.

Oh, it’s both, and you know it.

The buzzing of her phone on the armrest snapped her out of her daze, and for a second, her stomach flipped. Jo’s name blinked across the screen.

Amelia hesitated before answering, her pulse quickening as it connected. “H-hi.”

“Hey.” Jo’s voice was littered with nerves. “You got a minute?”

“Of course I do.”

Jo cleared her throat. “I needed to call you about last night.”

“Jo.” Amelia let her head rest back against the cushion. “It’s really not necessary.”

“No, let me say this. Please, I need to say it.”

Amelia sighed. “Okay. Go on.”

“I’m sorry.Sosorry. I crossed a line, it was inappropriate and impulsive and I…God, I don’t even know what I was thinking.”

“You were thinking that you needed to come,” Amelia said, a smile working its way to her lips. “Which, by the way, is absolutely okay.”

“Jesus, Amelia!”

“I don’t know what the big deal is.” Amelia’s tone softened. Sheneverwanted Jo to apologise for something so beautiful. “And please, don’t apologise again.”

“You’re not angry?”

“I’m not sure I have it in me to be angry with you. You caught me off guard, but…angry is something I’m definitely not.” Amelia smiled as she trailed her fingers around the rim of her mug. “Sometimes a woman just needs to get off. I’m flattered that I was on your mind while you did.”

Jo groaned on the other end of the line. “You’re not helping.”

“I’m not trying to.”

Even though Jo sounded as though she was at her wits’ end, Amelia could feel her smiling.

“I think we need to talk, Amelia. Properly and seriously.”