“I’m not going to therapy again. Don’t make me.” Tears welled up in Lucas’s eyes.
Fuck.
Kandace crossed the room and crouched to pull him into a hug. “I won’t, sweetie. I promised, and I meant it. That’s not what he means.”
Technically, that was exactly what Andrew meant, but he understood why phrasing was important. “This isn’t someone who wants to change you. They just listen. You can even take your mom with you, but you don’t have to.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’m going to bed now, if that’s okay.”
Kandace hugged him again and pointed him toward his room. “Of course. Good night, sweetie.”
The next day, Lucas announced he wanted to talk to someone. Andrew tried to mimic Kandace’s calm smile, but inside he was cheering and hopeful.
* * * *
Andrew dove back into the piles of work waiting for him—contracts to be signed, decisions to be made. Working from Kandace’s was far less of a distraction than being in the R&T offices.
Through it all, Andrew kept Susan out of his mind. He spent lunches and evenings getting to know Lucas. It wasn’t a smooth relationship. The boy frequently didn’t want anything to do with him.
And when it was night and quiet, a smiling face taunted Andrew’s memories. Susan’s crystalline laugh and clear blue eyes haunted his dreams. He needed to move on. This was a great time to evaluate how the market was changing. Which sites needed to go. What new fetishes were trending.
Could Susan bend into positions like that?
God-Fuck-It.
You’re being a Grade-A jackass about this. The taunting echoed in his thoughts.
Nope. Not listening. He had porn to evaluate. It had been a week and a half since he saw her. Why wouldn’t she leave his thoughts alone?
Conversations were terse with Mercy. That hurt, but at least she was taking his calls again. She’d recover, he’d find a new fascination, and they’d go back to normal.
“How’s Susan?” The question slipped out at the end of a business meeting, and he snarled at himself.
“None of your fucking business.”
That seemed fair. “Right. I’ll let you go. If I don’t talk to you in the next couple of days, Merry Christmas.”
She sighed. “Why did you do it?”
That was such an open-ended question, he didn’t know where to start. “Why haven’t you hung up on me yet?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
Because you adore me, stuck in his throat. Probably not the best time for playful teasing. “I’ll take what I can get, regardless of your reasons.”
“You led her on, and then you were an asshole about it.” Mercy’s anger singed him over the phone lines.
He wanted to argue he hadn’t done anything like that, but while he told a lot of stories, he didn’t want this situation misunderstood. Susan was more than a fascination. He felt like shit without her around, missed her, and cared about her so much, he was willing to risk an incredible friendship, to tell her how he felt. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I don’t believe you.”
The words hurt more than he expected. “What are the odds you’ll give me her new number?” Stupid question. There was no way. He needed to talk to Susan, though. Ignoring what he felt for her hurt too much. Even if she didn’t forgive him, he needed to tell her she was right about how he felt.
“How soon do you think Hell will freeze over?”
Her response meant he wasn’t the only one guilty of imposing his will on Susan’s best interests. “I just want to tell her I was wrong. You can’t stop me from talking to her.” Not the best approach to take. What the fuck was wrong with him?
“That doesn’t mean I have to make it easy,” she said.