Blurred Lines (Love Unexpectedly #1)(29)

Ben finishes off his beer and drops the bottle into the recycling bin. Portland is rubbing off on him. When he first moved to Oregon he used to throw away recyclable products like it was no big deal. I’ve trained him well.

He turns to face me. “Okay, obviously your overactive mind needs time to process this, so I’m going to go watch TV and relish my complete control over the remote. You let me know whenever you want to kick this off.”

“Tomorrow night, eight o’clock,” I say, before I lose my nerve.

He pauses in the process of reaching for another beer. “Oh, hell no. We’re scheduling this shit?”

I lift my chin. “That’s how I work. Take it or leave it.”

And then, just to be a little evil, I let my tongue toy with my bottom lip. Slowly. Deliberately.

He notices.

“Fine.” His voice is gruff. “Eight tomorrow.”

Ten minutes later, we’re both sprawled on the couch. I’ve lucked out, and there’s no sports that he cares about on TV, so he’s settled on some suspense-thriller movie neither of us have seen.

His legs are outstretched in front of him on the coffee table. Mine are stretched across his lap so I can lie on my side while watching the movie.

It’s just like always. Nothing feels different; nothing feels weird.

Except one thing is a little different.

I find that I can’t wait until eight o’clock tomorrow night.





Chapter 10


Ben


I like my job. I really like my job. And I seem to be pretty good at it, because rumor has it that I’m up for a promotion.

But today?

Today I can’t concentrate for shit.

And I’ve become a clock-watcher. As in, I’ve become one of those sad day jobbers who look at the clock constantly, only to realize in outrage that just five minutes have passed since the last time they looked.

Except most people are anxiously awaiting five o’clock. The hour when they can jet to happy hour or yoga, or just get the hell out of Dodge.

Five o’clock means nothing to me. I need it to be eight o’clock.

The time when I’m going to see Parker Blanton naked.

The thought should fill me with dread, or at least panic. She’s my best friend. It should be…wrong.

But after that kiss, I’m pretty sure the only thing wrong is that we haven’t thought of this before.

No-strings-attached sex with the hottest girl I know, who I won’t be dying to get rid of after?

Hell. Yes.

I try to turn my attention back to my computer. I’m a product manager on the e-commerce team, one of a half dozen assigned to the men’s golf section.

I f*cking love it. I know it’s not cool to get all geeked out on a day job, and I certainly never expected to, but it comes pretty easy considering I didn’t know much about websites before I started here, and knew even less about golf.

My days are made up of brainstorming enhancements for the section, writing the requirements documents for those enhancements, then testing them, et cetera.

There’s something very satisfying about managing the entire life cycle of something, and it’s hard not to pat myself on the back for trusting my gut and not going to law school.

Even if it did put me at odds with the old ’rents.

“Wanna grab a burrito?”

Jason Styles has his palms resting on the ledge of my cube wall, chin resting on the backs of his hands as he gives me a pleading, hungry look.

I glance at the clock. “It’s 11:07. I’ve barely finished breakfast.”

“Exactly,” he says. “We can beat the lunch rush.”

I open my mouth to argue, then close it, shrugging as I lock my computer. Why the hell not? It’s not like I’m getting anything done. Not with guaranteed sex on my calendar for later tonight.

Jason’s right about Burrito King—and yes, it’s called that—the line takes us two minutes instead of the usual twenty. “Let’s eat it here,” Jason says as we wait for our number to be called.

“Avoiding Sandy?” I ask.

Jason’s grunt tells me I’m right.

I shake my head as I fill up my cup with Coke. “I told you, dude. You have got to stop hooking up with girls you work with.”

“How else am I supposed to meet women? Not all of us can just walk into a bar and emerge with twenty phone numbers.”

I ignore this.

“You know, I wouldn’t have this problem if you’d let me ask out Park—”

“Nope,” I say, before he’s even finished the sentence.

“But she’s single now.”

“How do you know?”

“I ran into her at Starbucks the other day. I think she was giving me hints.”

“Trust me. She wasn’t.”

Parker thinks Jason’s a total tool, and I can’t blame her. The guy’s one of my better work friends, but he’s got a bad habit of talking to women’s chests. He’s also got a knack for spending an hour chatting up a woman at a bar, only to get her name wrong at the end of it. And he wonders why he doesn’t get any phone numbers.

“Hey, speaking of Parker…” Jason says.

I whip my head around in the direction he’s indicated. No Parker, but it is her BFF Lori.