He looked exceptionally handsome in jeans and a black T-shirt under a black leather jacket, but I noticed my observation of him had changed. He was gorgeous, no question, but his eyes were light blue instead of brown, and his hair was perfectly straight with no soft curls.
He’s not as attractive in the same way because you know he’s gay. That’s all.
I gave my head a shake. “I’m a warm-blooded American woman,” I said. “I have needs. Urges. Like, a lot of them, and yet I’ve relegated myself to a year’s worth of celibacy. A year.”
“Unrealistic expectations are failures waiting to happen,” Max said.
“Is that in your Sponsor’s Manual?”
“It’s the title,” he said, shooting me a small smile. “Anyway, I thought your plan was to stay out of a relationship for a year. Not to go full chastity.”
“I can’t do one without the other,” I said. “It’s my addiction, too. Not sex, but filling the emptiness with something that makes me feel good. And being with a man…that makes me feel good. The sex and the touching and the morning afters. God, I love the morning afters.”
I glanced up to see Max smiling at me with amusement. I flapped my hand. “But then I get attached and try to make something out of nothing, and it all slips through my fingers. I’m back to square one, only with another failure under my belt.”
“Mmmkay,” Max said. We stepped inside the linoleum and fluorescent hallway of the Y where our footsteps joined the soft clopping of other people headed toward their respective groups. “So what brought this sudden revelation on?”
“The unbearable hotness of my new neighbor.”
“Oh…? Do tell.”
“He lives below me. And he has a little girl, and I don’t even care. I thought that would be a total turnoff but it’s not. The way he cares for her only adds to his ridiculous sex appeal.”
A small voice in my head whispered that Sawyer was attractive in a hundred different ways, but his extreme good looks was the only one I’d let myself admit.
We stepped inside the meeting room. It looked to be a small group, only fifteen chairs sat facing a podium. I glanced around at my fellow recovering addicts. They ranged from young like Max and myself, to the oldest, who looked to be in his mid-sixties. In a corner was a table with coffee and donuts, and a woman, with dark hair and a tired but warm smile, who was setting out napkins and paper cups. Angela, the program director, I guessed.
We headed for the snack table. Max gave Angela a nod and a smile of greeting, and leaned in to me. “I think you need to be careful.”
“Of what?” I asked, perusing the donuts. “Aside from the hundred million other things I’m trying to be careful of…?”
“This guy—your neighbor—has a kid?” Max said. “If you start anything with him, that’s two relationships you’d be having, not one. And the one he has with his daughter is always going to be the most sacred.”
“I told you, there will be no relationship, sexual or otherwise, for one whole year,” I declared. I chose a bear claw and poured a Styrofoam cup of black coffee.
A year. God, that felt like a prison sentence too. The image of Sawyer’s handsome face, smiling at his little girl, rose unbidden in my mind.
“And even if I wanted to pursue something, it couldn’t be with Sawyer,” I said quickly, as if I were casting a spell to banish him from my thoughts. “He’s got too much going on with Olivia and his studies to be with anyone.”
“This Sawyer is a student? Please tell me he’s not in high school.”
I swatted Max’s arm with a laugh. “Don’t be gross. He’s at UC Hastings,” I said proudly. “He’s going to be a lawyer.”
“Sawyer the Lawyer?”
“This is why I love you, Max.”
“So he has no time for relationships.”
“Correct! So that’s good, right?” I said, taking a huge bite of donut. “He has no time, and I have to get my shit together.” Crumbs spilled down the front of my shirt. I brushed them off irritably. “It would just be easier if he weren’t so damn hot. And smart. And funny. He’s grouchy as hell too, but only on the surface. It’s like he turns this certain face to the world, but when it’s just him and Olivia...”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Max said. “How do you know all that about him?” He gave me a stern look. “Are you hanging out with the guy who already said he has no time for you?”
“Jeez, when you put it that way.” I rolled my eyes. “Yes, we hung out. Once. Tonight. I ran into him at the grocery store. The poor guy is living in frozen dinner hell. So I cooked for him.”
“You cooked for him?”
“Tuna casserole. It wasn’t as sinister as it sounds.”