Taking off the helmet, I handed it over to Nate. “Uh, thanks for the ride. That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”
He gave that smirk again, the one that made it seem like he knew more than he should. “Yeah. I could tell. Come on, I’ll walk you inside.”
“No, I’m good. It’s right over there,” I said, pointing to the front door a few hundred feet down the sidewalk.
“I don’t mind walking you in.”
“You think I’m going to get attacked? Is that what this is?” I asked incredulously, waving my hand around. “It’s broad daylight, and there are people all around. I think I’ll be fine. I can see the building, for God’s sake.”
“Still better if I walked you in,” he said, sounding somehow both bored and assertive.
It had been a little over two hours since I’d broken up with Rick. No one knew yet. I didn’t need my coworkers to start questioning whether I was banging some guy on the side. Rick visited me regularly at the office, and everyone knew him. Now that I thought about it, he’d come around a lot. Of course, my relationship status was none of their damn business, but I preferred to keep my personal and professional life separate.
I sighed, wondering how to say the next part without sounding like a weirdo. “Okay, look, you and Ollie made quite a stir when you showed up at the office earlier. I don’t want them all to get the wrong idea if the big, hunky biker dude comes walking in with me. Most of my coworkers know my boyfriend.”
I cringed inwardly. God, I’d basically just said Nate was some playboy who made a habit of stealing women from their boyfriends. It made me sound conceited and uppity. I hated it.
“What do you mean?” Nate asked, and if I weren’t mistaken, there was a mischievous glint in his eye. “Are you saying I’m—what was the word you used?—hunky?”
Shit.“It would look weird, that’s all. You know what I mean?”
Nate sighed, shaking his head, and gave me what I thought was a mock-confused look. “I really don’t. You’ll need to elaborate.”
“Ugh.” I groaned, throwing my head back to look at the sky. “You’rereallygood-looking, okay? I don’t need everyone in the office to think I’m fooling around with someone else.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Who said we were fooling around?”
I scoffed. “Okay, see, now I know you’re being a dick on purpose.”
“Such a dirty mouth on you,” Nate said. He looked me up and down, and I got the distinct feeling he was wondering what other dirty things I could do.
The thought was like a slap in my face, and I got off the bike so fast that I nearly tripped on the curb. He caught my arm, his fingers sliding against my bicep, sending another warm jolt through me.
“I need to get going,” I said.
“Right. You’ve got work to do.”
The flirty gleam in his eye and playful tone had vanished, almost as though he’d realized what he was doing and decided to pull it back. Why did I feel a little disappointed? Did Iwanthim to keep flirting with me? That was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard in my life, yet the thought wouldn’t wholly vanish, no matter how hard I tried to shove it aside.
Nate pulled his helmet off the back of the bike before pointing toward my office. “You better hurry. Bossman might get mad. Oh, sorry, or bosslady. I don’t want to sound like a chauvinist,” he said, resting his helmet on his lap.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said.
“No problem.”
For a few seconds, when we were looking at each other, an unnatural force seemed to want to shove us together. As though there were hands on my back urging me to hug him or kiss him goodbye. The thought sent a warm shiver between my legs.
“’Kay, bye,” I blurted and spun on my heel, hurrying away before the psychotic part of my brain took over and forced me to do something I most definitely didnotwant to do.
As I strode down the sidewalk, I could sense Nate’s eyes on my back. Heat tickled down my spine. The street was nearlyempty, so his view of me wasn’t blocked. I suppressed a shudder, and I couldn’t tell if it was one of horror or delight.
That confusion alone put me into a bad mood as I crossed the street. My bad mood increased when my nausea and headache returned with a vengeance. The medicine had only lasted for the duration of the bike ride.
With a massive struggle of willpower, I forced myself not to look back at Nate. Even without looking at him, I was still thinking about him, and a weird, oily sense of guilt oozed across my mind. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I’d been having some fairly inappropriate thoughts. Was it okay to have those sorts of thoughts so soon after breaking up with someone?
I pictured Rick’s face, and the shame slammed into me. It shouldn’t have struck me so hard, but it did.
As those thoughts bounced around in my head, my phone rang. Rick’s name flashed across the screen. Great. More guilt. I contemplated ignoring him, but I couldn’t completely ghost him. He’d want to talk things out, maybe apologize and try to win me back. Did I even want that? Not really, but if I didn’t answer, he’d just keep on calling until I went crazy.
