If the Sun Never Sets - Ana Huang Page 0,26

“And you weren’t ‘just talking’ to her.” He glared at Justin, his blood simmering again when he remembered the way Justin had eye-fucked Farrah at the bar. “You were trying to sleep with her.”

“True. But I try to sleep with everyone. No biggie.” Justin caught a kernel and popped it in his mouth, unfazed. “That was the same night you almost kissed, right? And you haven’t seen her since? I’m telling you, man, you gotta hit the brakes. Give her a chance to miss you.”

“It’s been two weeks.”

“I mean, you gotta be around her but not, you know, hit on her.”

“As much as I hate to agree with J on any of his often dubious advice, he has a point.” Landon kicked his feet up on his custom-made, expensive-as-shit coffee table. “You’re scaring her off.”

“I don’t hit on her that often,” Blake muttered. “The other night was a slipup.”

“Maybe not with words, but she feels it.” Justin waved his hands in the air. “Women have a sixth sense about this sort of thing and—oh, shit! The Celtics just scored. Up by two, baby!”

As Landon and Justin redirected their attention to the game and their mutual loathing of the Warriors, Blake pondered his friends’ advice.

What the hell. Might as well give it a shot. It couldn’t hurt. Right?

Chapter Thirteen

If someone had told Farrah last week that she’d willingly go on a road trip to upstate New York with Blake, just the two of them, she would’ve laughed in their face.

Yet here she was, ensconced in a rented Range Rover with her ex-boyfriend while they drove around Syracuse, looking for a place to eat lunch.

In her defense, she’d been desperate.

Farrah had gone into a tailspin when she received Blake’s text telling her the apartment had to be finished by late June because Mode de Vie was shooting a lifestyle feature on him there. It’d almost been enough to make her forget their inappropriate encounter at the lounge two-and-a-half weeks ago.

Mode de Vie. The most influential lifestyle magazine in the country. They always asked for the interior designer’s name when they shot at a subject’s home, which meant Farrah’s name would appear in its hallowed pages in a few months. That was the equivalent of an author getting their book featured in Oprah’s Book Club. One mention in the esteemed magazine could vault her from being an unknown to the brightest star in the sky…if her design was good. If not, Farrah could forget about her future in the industry.

Blake didn’t want any major remodeling done, thank God, which shaved weeks, if not months, off the process. But seven weeks was still a tight turnaround for redesigning an apartment his size.

Farrah had been a whirlwind of activity since she found out about the new deadline: calling contractors and pushing them for quotes and start dates, sourcing materials, and searching through every website and every store in the five boroughs for the perfect pieces that would transform Blake’s apartment into his dream home.

She’d succeeded, for the most part.

The only hiccup was the vintage trunk sitting in a little shop in Syracuse, four hours from New York City. Farrah had found it on the store’s website but when she called, they informed her they didn’t ship large items. She’d have to pick it up herself.

That wouldn’t have been an issue, except Farrah hadn’t driven since she moved to New York. She sure as hell wasn’t going to brave the city streets on her own. None of her friends in the city drove either, and she’d seriously considered hiring an Uber for the eight-hour roundtrip drive before Blake called her for a progress update.

She’d mentioned her dilemma; he’d offered to rent a car and drive her, and she’d accepted.

Now, here they were, with the trunk from the shop nestled snugly in the back of their car.

“This looks promising.” Blake slowed in front of a diner on the edge of downtown Syracuse. Since it was summer, the town swarmed with tourists instead of students from its eponymous university.

Farrah spotted several out-of-town license plates in the parking lot: Vermont. New Hampshire. Pennsylvania. Fortunately, there were a few parking spaces left. All the other restaurants they’d passed had been packed.

“Fine by me. I’ll eat anything at this point.” Farrah’s stomach growled with a ferocity that could scare off a pride of lions. “Hurry, before someone takes those spots.”

Blake smirked. He pulled the Range Rover into one of the empty spots, his muscles flexing against his shirt sleeve as he