Sugar on the Edge(29)

Picking up one of the kittens, I hold it above my face and watch its little paws try to swipe at me. “That’s Gavin Cooke. I clean his house, and he can be a bit prickly.”

“What did he say to you that made you practically run out of the bar?”

“I didn’t practically run out,” I grumble, although I did have an insane urge that night to flee from his sexual innuendos. “He just asked if you and I were lovers.”

“No way,” Brody exclaims as he dumps fresh litter into on one of the boxes. “Why would he think that?”

“I don’t think he really did. I think he was just trying to get under my skin, which is something he apparently enjoys doing.”

“Maybe he was trying to get under your skirt and was checking to see if you were single,” he muses.

“Not his style,” I tell Brody adamantly, and I’m amazed I know Gavin well enough to know exactly what his style is. If he wanted to get under my skirt, he would have said something like, I want to fuck you, and I could care less if you’re fucking someone else.

Yes, that was Gavin’s style.

“Well, he seems kind of full of himself,” Brody says casually. “Besides… he got under Tanya Stokes’ skirt that night, so I’m sure he was a happy camper.”

I spin toward Brody fast, bringing the kitten down to my chest to cuddle. “How do you know that?”

“Because she was hitting on him pretty hard prior to that. He bought her a few drinks. They left together that night. Pretty obvious, right?”

“I guess,” I mutter as I put the kitten back in his cage.

Man, that bothers me. I mean, I sort of figured Gavin was a player, but he’s kind of a grumpy recluse, so I never figured him to hit a local establishment and then hit the local talent so quickly. I know deep down that there’s really nothing special he sees in me. He’s a man with certain proclivities. I fascinate him for some reason, and he wants to exercise those proclivities because I was opportune. And I have no right to a feeling of betrayal, because we have no relationship… no exclusivity… no expectations to be broken. In fact, I’m betting if anything were to ever happen with Gavin, it would only be on the terms that there was no relationship… no exclusivity… no expectations.

Not that I’m expecting anything with him.

But still… the prospect of a hot, one-night stand with him is a thrilling prospect. It’s so not me… the anti-heroine.

Do I have the daring to do it? It’s something I need to consider, but one thing is for sure, if I do… I’ll have to do the pursuing, because he made it clear that I had to voice what I wanted. The thought of doing something so outrageous, so beyond the limits of my comfort, makes me slightly nauseated.

Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t have it in me. He’s exactly right. I’m always going to be the woman that waits for the guy to make the move… to save me… to give me an orgasm. I don’t have it in me to be the seducer.

Sighing in frustration, I open up the last cage and reach in past a sleeping black and orange tabby to pull the litter box closer to me.

“What’s with the dramatic sigh?” Brody asks.

“Nothing,” I say absently, and then I change my mind. Brody has hard life experiences, and from those experiences, untold amounts of wisdom which I intend to tap into. “Actually… have you ever felt like you were just stagnating… just running in place without any idea of where you’d go if you could ever get off your hamster wheel?”

“I’m happy to say ‘no’ to that answer,” Brody says as he closes the last cage that he was working on. Turning to me, he leans up against the metal housing and shoves his hands in his pockets as he waits for me to enlighten him.

“Never?” I ask in slight disbelief. “Not even after you got out of prison?”

“Not even then,” he confirms. “I didn’t have any ambitions or goals at that point, so there wasn’t anything to stagnate. I was satisfied with just being, if you know what I mean.”

I don’t know what he means, but I could imagine. Brody’s charmed life of medical school and a prosperous future were ripped away when he went to prison. Since getting out last spring, he was absolutely content to just sling drinks at Last Call and hide himself away from the rest of the world. Thank God Alyssa reached through to him… got him to want to live life again to the fullest. Now he runs The Haven with her and couldn’t be happier.

It’s what I want.

To be absolutely happy with my profession… my life… my world. I want to get off the freakin’ hamster wheel of mediocrity.