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TWENTY-THREE
Cole
I wokeup earlier than normal the next day, and I was glad for that.
I figured the energy I felt about getting up so early had to do with the fact I had called in the day before. And it wasn’t work that was beckoning me. It was Raya herself. I was dying to see her.
I hadn’t since Saturday morning, and I really just wanted to take her in my arms and hold her. The thought of having sex with her again was driving me insane, and I knew I was going to have to find a way to have her again. She hadn’t texted me or said anything about being upset about what happened, or that she regretted what happened, either.
There was always the chance that could happen, especially with someone who had never had sex before. I didn’t want her to think that I had just used her as a conquest, and I worried if I put off going back into work today, then she was going to draw that conclusion. I couldn’t blame her, of course, but I still didn’t want to make her feel that way in the first place.
Even if it wasn’t true.
Ham called me when I was on my way to the treatment facility, making sure I was actually going into work that day before he came over.
“Yes. I want to check up on the horse, and I need to talk to Raya about something,” I told him. “So no, if you come over early, don’t expect there to be any breakfast waiting for you or anything like that. I’m not there,” I said.
“Good thing I called first then,” he said. “I was going to text and see if you wanted me to bring you coffee, but if you’re on your way out, there’s no point.”
“Buy two and drink them both,” I told him. “You might need it working with Maveric today.”
He laughed and agreed, then I hung up the phone. I had made up the part about having something to talk to Raya about. I just wanted to talk to her. There wasn’t any specific thing I wanted to address. Just the fact that I could talk to her was enough to get me into work that day.
I wasn’t going to tell Ham about that. He didn’t need to know he was right about me and the feelings I had for Raya. It had been so long since I had a girlfriend, I knew he would be all over it when the day came. He was already teasing me about the way I talked about her, I could only imagine how bad it would be when I finally admitted to him I had those feelings toward her, and I was hoping that we would be something more. Fucking was great, but I wanted more from her.
I hadn’t thought about it much before, but now that we had crossed that line, I was looking to get more from her. I wanted more from her. And I hoped she was on the same page about that. We hadn’t talked about the fact that we’d slept together, and I wasn’t sure what was going through her mind now. I hoped she didn’t have second thoughts or regret it, and I hoped if she did, she would have let me know.
Or, perhaps she was waiting for me to be face to face with her before she brought that up. That would certainly be the more mature way to handle it, but then, I wasn’t sure how she would deal with something like this. She was still my boss when it came to the horses, but we weren’t employer or employee in my mind.
I was adamant I worked for myself. I worked with clients, and while they paid me, that didn’t mean they were somehow above me. I still was the one who called the shots. I just had to go through them before I did what I wanted to do with any of the horses. I could reconcile it in my brain over and over again, and I would.
There was nothing wrong with the two of us having sex. Especially since she’d made it clear that’s what she wanted with me. I was okay with it, and I was glad to know she was, too. It was hot. She was hot. She could be so much more than what she was to me now, but I wanted to find out where she was with her thoughts before we talked about something like that.
On the other hand, there was a chance we could get out of having the talk about what we were doing altogether. I would be okay with that, too. I never was much of a fan for making a big deal on labels. If we were together, we were together. I didn’t need the entire world to be informed with our labels and how quickly we were moving with everything.
But then, I hadn’t ever dated a woman who gave me her virginity before, either.
I had taken virginities, but it had always been more of a fling than anything, and that was just what I didn’t want to happen with Raya. I could see a real future there, and I wanted that. I wanted to explore what it would be like to have a life with her.
So I would take the careful steps to make that happen.
I arrived at work about twenty minutes earlier than normal but was surprised to find Raya was already there.
“Hey,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it in today, so I wanted to get a head start on the chores.”
“I would have let you know last night if I thought I wasn’t going to come in. I like to give as much notice as I can in case you are in need of finding someone else,” I told her. “How did you do yesterday without me?”
“I had some of the other staff members work with Romeo a bit just to practice what you’ve been working with him so far, but that was really the only change. Our secretary was out of the office for the afternoon, so I spent most of the day in there. Just thinking about you, really, and what happened with your leg.”
She let the words hang in the air, and I took the hint. I knew this was the invitation to talk about what had happened, and I wanted her to know without a doubt it had nothing to do with her.
“They did some tests on my leg yesterday,” I told her. “And I’m waiting for those to come back.”
“Did they say it might have had something to do with what we were doing the other night? Or did you tell them about that?” she asked.
“It’s none of their business,” I told her. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
She grinned at me. “I was just a little worried when you didn’t come into work the day after we had done that, you know? I wasn’t sure if we had made a mistake with it or what was happening, but on the off chance it was really just your leg, I wasn’t going to blow up your phone looking for answers.”
