I couldn’t face him knowing I’d gotten off to fantasies about him mere hours ago. With my luck, he probably possessed some superpower that allowed him to pick up on any orgasms he’d had a hand in (literally and figuratively).
I couldn’t risk it. I needed time to gather myself and figure out what I was going to do about our situation because it was unsustainable.
It took me almost an hour to get home. After another shower and change of clothes, I texted Carina to meet me at our local café.
“Thanks for coming on such short notice,” I said. “I had to get out of the house. It’s one of those days.”
“Not a problem. I’ll never turn down tea and pastries.” Carina broke off a piece of her scone. “Plus, I needed an excuse to get out of the house too. My parents are visiting.”
My eyebrows skyrocketed. “They’re in town? They were just here for Easter.”
“Yep. It was a surprise visit. I love them but, well, you know.”
I did, indeed, know.
Carina’s parents lived in Liverpool, where her father owned a thriving pho shop and her mother taught chemistry at the local university. They were super sweet, but she was their only daughter and they had strong opinions about her job, clothes, boyfriends, friendships, hobbies, and basically every other aspect of her life. It was the reason she moved to London and never looked back.
“There’s all this family drama because my aunt ran off with her accountant and sold our ancestral house in Vietnam without telling anyone,” she said. “My mom is beside herself.”
“Selling an ancestral home seems like something an accountant would advise against.”
“I don’t think he was very good at his job.” Carina shrugged, oblivious to the appreciative glances from a passing group of men.
With her gleaming black hair and flawless bone structure, she could easily make a killing as a model, but she hated being photographed. We’d been friends for three years, and there were maybe five pictures of us total.
“Anyway, enough about me,” she said. “What’s up with you? You look weirdly flushed.”
I relayed what happened yesterday minus the masturbation part. Some things were better kept secret.
“Wait, you slept over at Asher Donovan’s house and I’m just finding out now?” Her mouth hung open. “And you watched a horror movie? And you attacked him with a frying pan? Scarlett DuBois, who are you? It’s like I don’t know you anymore.”
“I didn’t attack him,” I grumbled. “It was self-defense. I thought he was an intruder.”
“You thought he was an intruder in his own house?”
“I told you I didn’t see his face before my fight-or-flight kicked in.” My reaction seemed even more ridiculous in broad daylight than it had last night, but weren’t best friends supposed to have your back no matter what? “Whose side are you on anyway?”
“I didn’t realize there were sides,” Carina said between bouts of laughter. “But if there are, I’m on yours, obviously. That being said, what happened was clearly a sign.”
“A sign that I need better judgment?”
“No, a sign that you need to sleep with him.” Carina ignored my sputter of protest and ticked off the reasons on her fingers. “He accidentally landed on top of you. You accidentally landed on top of him. You were forced to spend the night together because of a freak storm. You went downstairs for a snack at the same time. I know when the universe is playing matchmaker, and it is totally shipping you two right now.”
She loved the woo-woo universe stuff as much as she hated photos. It was charming when it wasn’t directed at me.
Thank God I hadn’t told her about what I did when I returned to my room.
“I can’t sleep with him,” I hissed. I cast a furtive glance around in case anyone was eavesdropping. “How would that look?”
“Like a rocking good time. Did you see that story a few years ago about the soap star who hooked up with him? She said he does this incredible thing with his tongue—”
“Carina.”
“I’m just saying, there’s documented proof that the man is a god in bed.”
“Which is another reason why I’ll never sleep with him. Even if I weren’t training him and he wasn’t Vincent’s nemesis, I could never hook up with another footballer. They’re fuckboys, and the few that aren’t are already taken.”
My ex hadn’t cheated on me, but it’d taken him less than a month to move on after our long-term relationship—among other things.
Carina’s brows dipped. She examined me over the rim of her mug for a moment before she set it down with a soft sigh.
“You can’t let one bad ex ruin your opinion of the opposite sex forever,” she said gently. “Don’t let him have that power over you.”
“It’s not the opposite sex. It’s the profession.”
She pinned me with her signature don’t-you-bullshit-me look. I countered with my we’ve-talked-about-this-so-don’t-you-push-me stare.
I used to roll my eyes at the clichéd characters who could “never love again” because some asshole broke their heart. Everyone suffered heartbreak at least once in their life, right? Get over it and move on.
It wasn’t until I experienced it myself that I understood how they felt. Once you’ve been betrayed by someone you trusted completely, it was hard to let your guard down again.
I saw potential heartbreak everywhere now, and I’d rather nip it in the bud than regret it later.
My feelings toward Asher were complicated. Complicated was never good.
Nevertheless, something he said last night nagged at me.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked after my stare down with Carina dissolved into a silent truce.
