Not You It's Me (Boston Love #1) - Julie Johnson Page 0,35

three of them to look sharply in my direction.

Chrissy lays a comforting hand on my arm. “Of course not, honey. You had every right to storm out of there, after what he said. But…”

I look at her expectantly. “But what?”

“Well, I don’t think he’d make the effort of bringing you all the way across town to his office if he just wanted to check in on you. A man like that doesn’t do anything without a purpose — and, honey, I’d assume the purpose in this scenario was to get a better look at what he sampled last night at the game.”

“You’re crazy,” I say, dismissing her immediately and glancing at Shelby. “She’s crazy, right? Back me up here, Shelbs.”

Shelby shakes her head. “Sorry, I have to agree with the preggo-nutcase on this one. No way would Chase Fucking Croft care about some random girl enough to follow up. If he’s really the CEO now, he’s got, like, a billion assistants working for him who very easily could’ve tracked you down on his behalf. Instead, he arranged to see you in person — in his private office, no less — to explain himself. I don’t care how many times you deny it — he’s interested in you, Gemma. Even if he pushed you away and gave some spiel about obligations and distractions… it still sounds to me like he’s torn.”

“Torn?” I ask, almost afraid to hear her answer.

“Between wanting you and wanting to keep his life as simple as possible, now that he’s back in the States and smack-dab in the middle of sorting out his family drama.”

“Right,” Chrissy jumps in. “He knows he wants you, but he also knows he can’t have what he wants. Eeek! This is even better than the daytime TV soaps I’ve been watching. Passion! Intrigue! Family secrets! Forbidden love!”

Mark snorts. “No matter how many times I hear you ladies dissect and overanalyze a man’s motives, it never gets even marginally less insane.”

Chrissy’s smile fades as her gaze moves to her husband. “You want crazy?” Her eyes narrow. “I’ve still got three more weeks of bed rest. I’ll show you crazy.”

Mark just grins at her affectionately and heads to the kitchen to retrieve the bottle and refill our glasses. And sitting there, sipping wine with my best friends, for the first time in two days — or maybe longer, if I really let myself think about it — I feel a weight lifted off my shoulders, because I know, whether it’s Rat Bastard Ralph or Chase Freaking Croft or nobody at all, I don’t need a man in my life to be happy.

Not when I’ve got them.

***

In case you’re wondering, I know it’s rare — the three of us staying friends, despite being in totally different phases of life. I’ve seen many BFF-bonds fall by the wayside when one girl got married, leaving her former bestie alone to struggle through the mires of single-hood without a wing-woman. And I get it — it can be tough, sometimes, to relate to Chrissy’s discussions of diaper cream and Shelby’s complaints about Paul never making it home for her all-vegan dinners, just as I’m sure it’s hard for them to hear about my previously pathetic love life which, until this week, consisted of a string of men just like Ralph.

Maybe it’s because, even when they were both single, they never really understood my choices when it came to love — probably because they couldn’t grasp the fact that I wasn’t looking for it.

See, people always make the mistake of assuming that sex and intimacy go hand in hand, that you can’t have one without the other, but they’re wrong. My friends talk about sex like it’s this perfect, intimate act, with fireworks exploding behind eyelids and worlds shifting and mountains moving. They’re always making love, never fucking. As if a girl can’t simply enjoy the mechanical processes that lead to a good orgasm without wanting a rock the size of Texas on her left ring finger and a Pinterest board full of organza dress ideas.

They don’t talk about the satisfaction of sex without strings because, even though men do it all the time, for some reason it’s still somewhat of a scandal if a modern woman’s number of sexual partners exceeds single digits.

Here’s your meaningless, mind-blowing orgasm, served up with a side of slut-shaming and unfair societal expectations. Enjoy!

Maybe they choose to forget. Maybe they’ve watched too many movies, read too many romance novels, believed too many COSMO