“I’m just all over the place lately.” I glance up at my laptop, open to a case report I’ve never had the heart to read. I didn’t need the details.
Ian was gone. That’s all I needed to know.
“Is there something I can help you with?” May asks from across our shared office. As a recovering alcoholic, May knows the slightest deed or subtle hint can trigger old desires. I like to think I have my shit under control, but there’s no doubt Jake Drummond could drive me to drink if I so desired to return to that road, which I do not.
“Man trouble.”
May’s mouth falls open while her eyelids rapidly blink. She doesn’t speak for an entire minute.
“I didn’t know you were dating someone.”
“I’m not.” I don’t know what I’m doing with Jake. I certainly understand the particulars of what we did the other night, but I still had questions. Was it a one-night stand? Did what we did mean something to him? And why now? Why him? After all this time of skirting dates and turning away interested parties, why was Jake the one under my skin and over my body?
A rush of warmth travels down my spine and settles uncomfortably between my thighs. I cannot stop thinking of him. How he took his time. How he watched every move he made. How he kissed me afterward.
“You didn’t knit him a sweater, did you?” May teases me, reminding me of when she gave a hand-knit sweater to her beau Alec Rossi before he was officially hers. I told her about the sweater curse.
If you knit a man a sweater, you’ll break up or something like that.
“No, ma’am. I certainly did not.” I gave Jake Drummond something else. I’m not a virgin—heavens no—but I have not had sex since that disastrous night six years ago when I thought I was ready after losing Ian. When I drank too much and woke alone on my hallway floor, certain I’d been with a man who came home with me but had disappeared during the night. That poor decision scared the drink right out of me. How could I do that to myself? That morning, I accepted I wasn’t ready to move on from Ian and I needed other coping mechanisms rather than those gin and tonics that filled my nights. I sought grief counseling and Alcoholics Anonymous. I had trouble accepting my weakness, but I’d nearly lost my business because of it. I definitely had lost faith in myself and my judgment.
“So what’s the problem?” May questions.
“I slept with him instead.”
“And that’s a problem, how?” May slowly gives me a mischievous grin.
“Don’t give me that look, lady,” I sternly warn her, but my lips lose the battle and match her smile.
“I have two questions for you. Did you enjoy yourself, and were you safe?” May dropped her voice as she spoke in a poor imitation of me, recanting our conversation when she considered Alec only a rebound hookup. Then she laughs.
“Yes, Mom,” I tease back at her, although I’m over a decade older than her.
“I do remember a certain someone once telling me as long there was no alcohol involved a little rebound loving never hurt anyone,” May reminds me. “But this wasn’t a rebound, was it?”
Ian and I hadn’t broken up. He’d died. My first bounce into sex was a wake-up call to my deeper issues, which May knows about as I first sponsored her in AA. I glance back at the case report pulled up on my computer and touch a key to close the file.
“Maybe I should have just knitted a sweater,” I state, dismissing my slip with Jake. If I knit him one, will he go away now? Do I really want him to?
“Nah. I’d always go with sex,” May says, winking at me, stealing all my lines. I’m paying for teasing her about Alec, but there’s nothing to joke about. Her beau is a hot, hunky man who does right by my girl.
Suddenly, I’m considering that sweater and decide some retail therapy in the yarn store in Montpelier is a better use of my time than staring at a report I don’t want to read.
Two days later, I’m still ruminating over what Jake and I did. I went to an AA meeting for professional women only in Montpelier intent on avoiding the meeting Jake attends in Colebury. I’d also been avoiding the building site, although Alfred called me, wondering if I’ve made a decision about the directorship.