Page 11 of Sweet Spot

“Fine.” Sara wound her mane of black hair into a giant topknot. “To put it simply, Lukas woke up your libido and now you’re crazy horny. Right?” She stuck a pen into her hair to keep it in place. “You want to get rid of these feelings but not with him, because you’re afraid of getting attached to someone that hot.” She glanced down at her phone. “And judging from just the picture on his website,” she flashed the image at me, “he looks like he’d be pretty good in bed, which would only get you more attached. Right?”

“Right. Can you stop Googling him though?”

“Yes. But the point is.” Sara kept her eyes down as she twiddled away on her phone. “A candlelit dinner isn’t going to be enough for you to forget a babe of this caliber. You need actual sex to get over him. Good, hot sex with a nice, boring guy. That way you’ll quench the thirst without getting attached, you’ll stop associating anything remotely sexual with Lukas and then you’ll finally go back to living your merry life – am I not right?”

I blinked and stared. “I mean it makes sense. It’s just weird to think about having sex for the first time in so long. Though I guess if I’m going to do it…” My gaze floated elsewhere as I sighed. “I guess it should be with someone I don’t really care about. As horrible as it sounds.”

“It doesn’t sound horrible, it sounds practical and efficient and it’s exactly why I keep Jeff around,” Sara said, popping a piece of cake into her mouth. She was referring to her copy editor at work. He was cute enough. Nowhere as cute as Sara, of course, but that was the point. He was already at the office, he wasn’t someone to obsess over and he got the job done so she could get her job done. Otherwise, her firecracker of a libido – pretty sure we’d nicknamed it Roxanne – would hold her brain hostage till she gave it some attention. Sara shrugged. “Sometimes you just gotta feed the craving and move on.”

I nodded quietly, trying to figure out if this was actually a good idea or if my mind was simply that far gone. Not that it mattered anymore. “Welp, this might just be our solution then.” I threw my hands in the air. “I guess this means I need to find myself a date.”

“Done,” Sara gave a final tap on her phone and smirked. “What do you think I’ve been doing the past two minutes?” she asked, flashing me her glowing screen. On it was my new, thoroughly filled out dating profile, all ready to go with a full bio and picture. I raised my eyebrows and nodded.

“I would yell at you for being creepy but that was impressively time-efficient.”

“How a workaholic rolls. Not that I have to tell you,” Sara said, sliding her phone across the table. “Anyway, check him out. He’s cute and fit and he has literally none of the same interests as you. He hates dogs.”

“What?”

“And chocolate.”

“Stop.”

“I know. Fuckin’ weirdo, right?” Sara said excitedly. “But he has nice arms so you’ll have great sex and be over him in a jiff. It’s gonna be great.”

I burst out laughing, in disbelief of the fact that I was actually considering this. But I was, and I didn’t mind it. I’d always been a late bloomer. I graduated college at twenty-four, got my first apartment at twenty-five and only started discovering my own hobbies and interests at twenty-six. Of course it would take till twenty-seven to figure out sex and dating. It was just how I rolled.

“Alright, fuck it. Let’s do it,” I said, grabbing Sara’s phone and messaging the cute dog hater. But just as I finished, my eyes were drawn to the well-groomed, dark blonde man in the expensive suit behind Sara. He’d been sitting with his back facing us this whole time, but now he was standing up and peering at me with a ghost of a grin on his lips. I rolled my eyes as he tossed back his espresso, suspecting that he had eavesdropped and was laughing at our conversation.

But my stomach quickly turned as I watched him exit the shop and cross the street, walking leisurely toward my building and up the stairs before getting quickly buzzed in. I felt the blood drain from my face as I stared out the window and muttered, “Shit.”

Sara frowned, glancing over her shoulder. “What?”

“Nothing. I just really hope that guy is Rachel’s new boyfriend,” I said, referring to my neighbor on the first floor.

“Why?”

“Because if he’s not, then he’s a friend of Lukas’s.” I closed my eyes as Sara’s went wide. “And he just heard every word we just said.”

5

LUKAS

“Julian said you do most of your business with professional athletes?” the brunette in my lap twirled her ponytail as she sipped a vodka soda.

I nodded as I worked on my third Scotch of the night. I may or may not have started drinking early with Emmett before meeting Julian for cigars at The Pike on Park Ave. After several rounds, the plan had been to come back here to catch the game before dinner but the second we opened the front door, the girl on the first floor popped her head right out. Rachel or Rochelle – one of those two. After introducing herself, she introduced the six or seven friends she had over for a girl’s night out. And just like that, girl’s night out became a girl’s night in my apartment because Emmett decided to open his dumb mouth and invite everyone over.

“Not most of my business,” I answered the question vaguely. “But some.”

“Wow.” Ponytail ran my hand up and down her thighs. “You must make millions off of them.”

“They’re good clients to have,” I said. It was the least revealing answer possible but it still drew another few girls to the couch like flies to honey. Straddling the armrest now was a leggy redhead who casually grabbed my free hand and dropped it into her lap.

“I heard you hang out with the New York Empires. That’s so cool – I love baseball,” she purred as across the room, Emmett grinned at me, toasting his lowball of whiskey at my two handfuls of thigh. Combined with the buzz of Scotch and cigars, it helped. It didn’t erase the memory of Lia’s big eyes on my cock, but at least it was something – especially since she’d been avoiding me like the goddamn plague since that day.

“Do you work out with them or something? I mean it looks like you do.”

My answers were on autopilot now, my tongue easily fielding the flirty questions till I spotted Julian coming back into the apartment. I was still talking when I flashed him a death look. We’d both agreed to entertain the girls for Emmett’s newly single sake, but Julian had taken the coward’s way out by disappearing for forty minutes. So as payback, I announced his arrival to the girls on the couch, prompting them to burst into a round of applause as he angled his way back to us.