a human rather than anything that was battery-operated—but that it needed to be one specific human male.
My body was wrong.
Nora was wrong.
“I stand corrected.” I got up from my chair and squared my shoulders. “I believe he was expressing interest and if he asks me for my number, I’m resolved to give it to him.”
Five minutes later, I was reciting my phone number while a charming man named Antonio typed it into his phone. The unease in my stomach hadn’t abated, but I firmly told myself there was no reason for it. I was doing absolutely nothing wrong in sharing my number with him. It wasn’t necessarily going to lead to anything.
Even if it did, I was a single woman. Corban would have no right to be upset.
And of course, he wouldn’t be. Why would a man be upset that the woman he didn’t like but was forced to work with had given out her number?
I didn’t have feelings for Corban Nash. Not the romantic sort, at least. And this proved it.
11
Corban
“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” ~ Oprah Winfrey
A bead of sweat dripped down my spine as my muscles strained. I kept my grip tight on the hand-holds and pushed with my legs to move higher up the rock wall.
It felt good to be off the ground, plastered against a near-vertical surface, my skill and strength the only thing between me and falling. There weren’t a lot of activities that were intense enough to quiet my brain, but rock climbing was one of them. I couldn’t think about work, or numbers, or my research, or the annoyingly hot psychologist I had to work with five days a week.
Climbing required focus. Just the placement of my hands and feet. Shifting my body weight for balance. I was bouldering today—free-climbing without a harness or ropes—so every position was important.
But even though I was traversing across a challenging section of wall, making my body burn with effort, my head wasn’t nearly as clear as I wanted it to be.
Damn it, Hazel, why are you ruining my Saturday?
I couldn’t stop replaying the moment she’d said be adventurous sexually. Those words coming out of her pretty mouth had set off a cascade of thoughts and fantasies.
How adventurous was she? Were there things she dreamed of doing, but hadn’t? Things she liked that I could do better than her previous partners?
Frustrated at the sudden intrusion into my calm, I maneuvered sideways to put myself in a better position. My fingers gripped the hand-holds, and I kept my body pressed against the artificial wall. I glanced down, noting the location of the ground. It was all too easy to lose track of where you were. That tended to be how accidents happened.
I’d tried rock climbing in college and discovered I really liked the sport. For a kid who’d grown up believing he was hopelessly un-athletic, finding something I was good at physically had been a big win.
What climbing did for my body didn’t hurt either. I’d put on quite a bit of muscle, even more than when I’d started working out in high school. And as it turned out, muscles made a nerdy guy a hell of a lot more attractive to members of the opposite sex.
Even if I’d hated it, I probably would have kept climbing just for that reason.
I got to the end of the course and made my way back down. When I was close to the bottom, I pushed off and let go, landing on my feet on the mat below.
Even though I’d already worked up a sweat, I decided not to go home. I wanted to beat myself up a little more. Maybe that would finally get Hazel out of my head.
I walked down the street to my gym and joined some guys in a game of basketball. That was another sport I’d gotten good at. Or good enough, at least. I could sink three-pointers like a boss.
After two games, I headed home, exhausted, sweaty, and starving.
And discovered I had an almost-empty refrigerator.
With a groan, I grabbed my wallet and left before I could collapse onto the couch and decide I could make do with a slice of cheese and some stale chips, which were the most substantial things I had left in my kitchen.
The corner store a block away had a nice deli with good hot meal