Alpha Male Romance(81)

Part of me wanted to tell him no, that I needed a clean break and fresh start. That I wanted to stay here and pursue new relationships, find a new job, keep my parents at a distance.

Except I knew that there were plenty of things in Philadelphia that made staying here a bad idea.

I closed my eyes for a moment and pinched the bridge of my nose. I was getting an awful headache. When I opened my eyes, Tanner was watching me, and I could see the cautious hope in his eyes. Another thing that Tanner had going for him. He was eternally optimistic and hopeful about everything.

“I need some time,” I finally said. “You completely caught me off guard at a time when I was already struggling to figure out what I wanted to do in the near future.”

He nodded. “I understand.”

He stood and I did the same, tilting my head back to look up at him. I'd forgotten how tall he was.

“I can be patient.” He started for the door and I followed him out into the hallway. When we got to the front door, he stopped and turned to me. “I'm planning on heading back to Texas first thing in the morning. Do you think we could have dinner tonight?”

I raised an eyebrow and he held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“Just as friends. No pressure, Nori.” He smiled at me. “I promise, we'll only talk about work and weather and all those sorts of things that friends talk about.”

It would be nice to have at least a couple hours where all of the shit going on wasn't preoccupying my mind. And I trusted Tanner. If he said we were going as just friends, then that's all it'd be. He was a man of his word.

“Okay,” I said. “Dinner tonight. You want to meet me somewhere?”

He shook his head. “Of course not. I might only be your friend, but I'm always a gentleman.”

I chuckled and shook my head. I had to admit, I'd missed this easy sort of banter. “So then I'll see you at seven?”

“At seven,” he agreed. Then he leaned down and kissed my cheek.

It was an innocent kiss, something I'd seen Tanner do with female friends. But if I still had feelings for him, I knew even that platonic touch should've given me butterflies, left heat on my skin. It didn't though. It felt the same as a handshake.

“I'll see you later,” he said as he opened the door and walked out.

As I turned from the door, I caught a flash of movement near the stairs and knew that X had just walked by. How much he'd seen and heard, I didn't know, but I couldn't deny that I hoped he'd heard me emphasize that my dinner tonight with Tanner was just between friends. I didn't want X thinking it was anything more, and that realization did nothing to make me feel any better.

I sighed again. Kipp would be here shortly and I needed to be in the therapy room to make notes on X's progress. I had to put all of this aside and do my job. Later, I'd try to sort all of this out and figure out what I wanted, and what would be best for everyone involved.

I just had a bad feeling that what was best and what I wanted weren't going to be the same thing.





Chapter Three





Nori





I was starting to wonder if I'd made a mistake. Not in breaking up with Tanner, but in agreeing to go out with him tonight. X hadn't said a word about what he overheard, or even about Tanner in general, but I felt like the wall between us had gone back up. He hadn't been rude or anything like that, but when I saw him at PT, he hadn't smiled or talked to me about anything other than business. When he asked how long I thought it'd be before he could change his own bandages, he hadn't met my eyes and I'd known what he'd really wanted to know.

How long until I was gone.

I told him he'd still need my help for a while, and hadn't mentioned anything about whether or not I'd stay on after. He didn't ask either.

If Kipp was able to sense the shift between us, he didn’t show it. Having him there had helped provide a natural buffer, but when he left, things had gone awkward almost immediately. I was relieved when X hadn't tried to stop me when I’d left, mumbling something about needing to clean the upstairs.

Now, it was nearly seven o'clock and I was starting to get nervous. Which was weird, because I hadn't been nervous about going out with Tanner since those first couple of dates as we'd shifted from friends to more. And even then, it was an entirely different sort of anxiety. I'd known then that I liked him, and I'd worried that he wouldn't feel the same way about me. This time, the shoe was on the other foot, and I didn't know what to do about that.

He'd already said how he felt, so there was no mystery there. He knew what he wanted to happen between us and where he wanted the relationship to go. I was the one who wasn't sure.

It took me nearly an hour to get ready, which wasn't typical of me at all. I was the sort of woman who picked out one outfit, put it on, went with minimal makeup, and I was good to go. I rarely changed into something else once my mind was made up, and the entire thing was always about what I felt like wearing. Even when Tanner and I first started dating, I hadn't dressed to impress him. I'd dressed to feel pretty and hoped he'd like it, but that was a totally different thing.