Now he wants to talk? “Not tonight; I have to work. I had a shit couple of days. I just need to go home.”
“Then let me take you home,” Cody offers, ever the gentleman and I can at least respect that but I’m not exactly ready to just let it all go. I can’t just let it go. Ignoring me, ghosting me, and then getting all touchy-feely with me in the bar? He could have handled this any other way than how he did. I suppose I could have too, but I’m too tired, too overwhelmed, and too pissed off to think about it right now.
“I can take myself. I’m fine.” The bitter note in fine is the cherry on top of this shitty night. I shake out my hands, trying to let it all go before digging in my purse for my keys.
“I know you’re still mad. I’m good at pissing people off.”
The confession tumbles out of me before I can stop it. “I wonder if you’d have even come over to me if someone else hadn’t hit on me.” Shit. It hurts to say it out loud. I could have left and he wouldn’t have even said hello to me if someone else wasn’t scouting out his territory. My hands go clammy. It would have been easier to just ignore him and go about my night. Why the hell did I let him get to me? Why did I go after him when I knew it wasn’t going to work?
“That’s bullshit,” he says and his conviction makes me doubt myself.
Lifting the strap to my purse higher up on my shoulder, the keys still not found, I question him, “How would I know? You didn’t message me. You couldn’t even look at me. Was it really that bad?” I’m proud that my voice doesn’t break out loud like it does in my head. “No one likes to be ignored. Especially not by a man I just slept with this past weekend.”
“Don’t do that,” he says. Cody’s voice is comforting but I don’t fall for it.
“I’m not your problem, so I can do anything I want, Agent Walsh.” I’m close to turning away from him when he takes my elbow in his grasp and before I can object, places something in my hand.
“I was texting you this,” he says and closes his hand around mine, forcing me to take his phone. “Just read it. All right?”
“I don’t want to read a text when you could have sent it and didn’t.” My annoyance does nothing but fuel him to stare me down until I let out a frustrated sigh.
“Just read it.”
Finally, I look down at the phone, if for no other reason than to appease him enough to let me leave. The bright screen lights up and I see he’s brought up his messages between the two of us. It’s a long message that he’s referring to, one left unsent. I have to scroll up and when I do, I accidentally hit send. Shit. I guess it doesn’t matter if I’m reading it anyway. Letting out a slow breath and ignoring the squeal of tires from someone leaving on the opposite side of the mostly vacant garage, I start to read the message Cody thinks is going to change my mind.
I enjoyed last night.
That’s the first line and I don’t get much farther. “It wasn’t last night,” I comment, letting my head fall to the side and seeing for the very first time in years, a vulnerable Cody Walsh.
With the lights from the parking garage illuminating his face, he looks younger than I’ve seen him before and my breath slips out easier as I remember his hard body over mine, his muscles flexing as he took me, pressing my back against the sofa and rocking himself into me ever so slowly but deeply to bring me closer to my own release before he found his.
“I didn’t start writing it today,” he admits, scratching the back of his neck. His five o’clock shadow combined with that boyish smirk makes me warm to him.
Dropping his phone back in his hand, I don’t read the rest of the message.
“I enjoyed it. I like you. I just don’t know how to not fuck it up.”
“Going caveman isn’t something I’m interested in,” I offer him.
“You want this to be discreet?” he asks and I simply nod.
“Read the rest,” he presses, pushing the phone toward me but I reject it. Only the phone; I don’t reject