“Fucked it up?” Alex asked.
“You might be right about me blabbing too much online,” Jason confessed. “Less said about all that, the better. Anyway, I’m back on the market.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just give it some time. You’ll find someone new, or she’ll find you.”
“Easy for you to say. You’ve had women hanging all over you ever since all the crazy started.”
“That’s not all a good thing,” frowned Alex.
“Oh, whatever. It’s only not a good thing for you because you’re…” Words failed him. He waved his hand at Alex. “You’re you.”
“Jason, the one thing that I learned from all the crazy was that I wasn’t getting anywhere with girls because I wore all my angst and loneliness like a neon t-shirt. Nobody wants to get with that. Fact is, you’re a good catch, and you know why. Just relax and don’t worry about it.”
“Is that how you work it?” Jason said, trying not to sound sullen.
His friend grunted, wanting to avoid that topic entirely. “Hey, I gotta head back to work,” Alex said.
“Yeah, I’ve got another class soon myself. Should probably get going.”
“I’ve got the bill,” said Alex, leaving cash on the table. He stood as Jason stepped out of his seat. “Everybody still on for pool tomorrow night? I’m gonna be late, but I’ll be there.”
“Sure,” Jason said. “See you then.” With that, he headed out the door.
Before he left, Alex pulled out his phone and sent out a text message: “Mission accomplished. Everything’s cool.” He didn’t expect a response from Lorelei anytime soon. Fundraising for the arts required a lot of schmoozing and charm, neither of which would be helped by poor cell phone etiquette.
He looked up from his phone to find one of the restaurant’s servers standing in front of him at his table. “You know you don’t have to hurry out of here, right?” she asked, smiling up at him with dark eyes and darker hair. She gestured to the mostly empty tables beyond his. “You kinda came in after the lunch rush was over, anyway. If you want to hang out, it’s not like we need the table…?”
Alex smiled back reflexively, and then saw from her stance that she read it as an encouraging sign. He realized then that perhaps he shouldn’t have let his eyes drift over to her so many times while he and Jason ate, and that he’d gone out of his way to be polite and friendly… perhaps too far out.
“Sorry,” he said, “I’ve gotta get back to work. Going to lunch this late was an exception as it is.”
The waitress just shrugged. “Come back anytime.”
He felt her eyes on him as he passed. His strongest urges made it difficult to walk out the door, but his willpower won out in the end. Tempting as it was to stay and flirt, Alex preferred instead to keep his job—which presented plenty of its own similar challenges.
* * *
Some days were easier than others.
This afternoon would be tough. He could feel it in the elevator. He had only three hours to go after his late lunch, and knew he’d tremble through probably half of them.
Half of him hoped he would find Kat filling in at reception in her tight sweater, or perhaps Stephanie and her white, form-hugging dress shirt with the top buttons ever so innocently popped open when Alex came around. The other half of him told him to keep it in his pants, to avoid Stephanie entirely this afternoon, to stop thinking about sex and to focus on his work. He had a lot of filing ahead of him. Three hours of decent, reliable, utterly chaste filing.
Alex couldn’t claim his hair-trigger arousal didn’t feel good. Allowing himself even harmless fantasies made real opportunities hard to resist, though—and living under the “curse” of a succubus seemed to ensure those opportunities would come his way. Moreover, his natural charm and confidence seemed to grow in leaps and bounds under Lorelei’s influence. Once shy and wary of coming off as a creep, Alex now had to make an effort not to flirt.
At least he had no issues working beside Kat, despite her perfume and her eye-catching figure. The work dynamic between Alex and Kat was rife with innuendo, but there was never any chance she’d cheat on her boyfriend, or that Alex would tempt her toward that. No matter how much they teased, Kat served as a reality check on his magnetism. Not every woman was interested. Kat was safe. She was great eye-candy and great company, but no one’s self-control seemed ready to crumble there.
Stephanie was another matter entirely. Alex’s attraction to the party-girl copy room clerk had originally been one-sided, but as his confidence and experience grew, so did her interest. He didn’t know if he could deny another overt advance from her today.