All the Wrong Reasons

3. Backslide

“Nope.  He never had a girlfriend!  That’s the point.”

She heard her doorbell ring.  She was happy with a little distraction.  She lost count of how many lies she just told her best friend in a space of two minutes.  She opened the door.

Surprise of all surprises.  The man of the hour himself is at her doorstep.

What does he want now?!

 

He was about to open his mouth to say something but she cut him off.

“Shut up!”  She told him, and his eyebrows shot up behind his sports sunglasses.

“What?”  Jill asked.

“I mean… let’s not talk about him.  I’ll go take a shower and I’ll call you back later.”  She hung up without waiting for Jill’s answer.

She faced Justin, who looked amused.  He held out a cup of Starbucks coffee in his hand.

“For the hangover?  That’s assuming I can speak now.”  He said, smiling.

She opened the door wider without saying a word and turned her back on him.  He followed her inside and closed the door behind him.

He placed the coffee on her table and pushed his shades up on his head, revealing his beautiful blue eyes.

”Thanks.”  She said.

“No sweat.”  He said.  “You didn’t give me a chance to make you one this morning.”

She turned red.  She was now very sober and was reminded of everything that happened between them last night.

“Yeah… last night… It was… it never should have happened.”  She stammered.

He didn’t say anything.  He just stared at her with his crystal blue eyes, quizzing her… and for reasons she couldn’t understand, drowning her.

After a while, he said, “But it did happen, honey.”

“Yes.  And I hope we can just forget about it.  Like… like we don’t know each other.”

“But we do know each other now.”  He said.  “Intimately, I might add.”

“Yes, damn it!”  She was really irritated now.  She doesn’t need this.  She doesn’t want this.  Sure, she would feel very insulted if she met him in the hall or in the elevator and he acts like he doesn’t know her, especially if he had another woman in his arms, which is most likely to happen.  Although since she moved into her apartment and learned that he was her next-door neighbor, she has never seen him bring a woman into the building.  But she thought, it would be much better and much more comfortable pretending she doesn’t know him than exchanging hi’s and how are you’s with him.