Like He Never Left

chapter 29

I bite my lip coyly. "Depends. Am I getting paid?"

His eyes brighten, and he plays along. "How much would you like for your services?"

"You know I have no interest in money," I say back rather poshly. 

"Oh dear." He pauses, squeezing my hips. "What are you interested in? Gold? Jewelry?"

I shake my head. "Maybe something a bit more... scandalous."

He feigns shock as he presses his back against the chair. "I just don't see how that will work."

I grind my hips down right above him and rest my hands on the chair behind him, caging him in. I lean down, our noses almost touching, and I watch him squirm in anticipation beneath me. "Where there's a will, there's a way, my dear. You just have to find it if you want it bad enough."

-

We spent the rest of the day working on the project he's currently taking on. He let me help carry beams and other slats of heavy wood, and I was grateful to be included. 

Another boyfriend was there, but he insisted that he had pulled enough splinters out of his hands to last a lifetime. His boyfriend, Warner, told him that's why we're wearing work gloves, and I about fell over from laughter at the look of his face. 

Thoughts of Colt crossed my mind as I worked, but I didn't let them linger for too long. I couldn't worry myself into a hole while on a construction site. 

We were just finishing the insulation, and then we would call it quits for the day. I held the pink insulation foam sheets up while James secured them in place, and we just had a few more to put in. 

"So I was thinking about how I'm going to pay you tonight," James says, and I perk up. 

"Sorry, can't tonight. I have plans," I state simply through a smug smile, and James's mouth drops open a little bit. I shrug. "I never said tonight."

"Yeah right like you implied another time."

I cock a smirk. "I'm sorry you read too much into it. That sounds like a personal problem."

His head falls back in exasperation. "Jesus Christ, Josie. You've got me so wound up so tight and now I can't even..." he trails, and I giggle, holding up the last foam sheet for him. He secures it, and when he's done, I pat his shoulder sympathetically.

"Sorry Charlie. Looks like you're on your own tonight." I turn my back and sashay away, hearing him failing to suppress a frustrated groan.

"Hey!" he calls back, and I turn on my heel, walking backward and grinning slyly. "I love you!"

I give him a two-finger salute and turn right back around.

After having almost no physical contact with a man this way for almost nine years, goddamn, I've still got it. 

-

"That's fucking disgusting." Wrinkling my nose, I stare down SueEllen's "snack" with disdain. 

She dips her pickle back into her mint chocolate chip milkshake and glowers at me. "You're just jealous 'cause you don't have the balls to try it."

"And my stomach thanks me for it."

We'd been pouring over baby name books for the last hour, sending Tommy our every now and then to get us food. SueEllen placed herself on the club chair with her legs tucked underneath her as far as she could get them, and I was sitting on the ground in front of the coffee table where all the books lay with sticky notes indicating names we liked.