The Design

  “Dude, you missed all the action. Some guy from the accounting department took seven shots in a row and then threw up everywhere.”

  Wow. Sounds wonderful.

  “Huh, that’s crazy,” I said, unable to hide the boredom in my voice.

  “Yeah. And turns out Grayson is a no-show. So lame!”

  I snapped my head back to her. “What? I thought you said he invited you?” I asked with a gentle tone. It was as close as I was going to get to calling her out on her lie. I mean, I did still have to live with the girl, after all.

  She shrugged off my question and turned to slap her hand down onto the bar.

  “Bartender! We’ve been waiting forever!” she snapped.

  I cringed and shot an apologetic smile to everyone casting us annoyed glances.

  “Bartender!” she yelled again.

  I took a step away from her so that people wouldn’t associate us as friends, but she didn’t even notice.

  “You want a straight whiskey shot or something else? We can get one of those buttery nipple things?” she asked, slurring her words more and more by the second.

  I glanced around the bar to confirm Grayson’s absence, but she was right. He wasn’t there.

  “You know what? I don’t feel that great. Why don’t you keep hanging out with the other guys? I’m going to head back to the apartment.”

  “What? BOOOOO. You suck,” she said, reaching out to push me. She probably meant it to be a light, playful move, but I lost my footing and bumped into the waiter walking behind me, spilling one of his cocktails in the process. Red liquid spilled over the edge of his tray and soaked the front of his white shirt.

  “Oh no! I’m so sorry!” I exclaimed before turning back to Hannah to see if she saw the damage she’d just caused.

  No. She was already bending over the bar, stealing another shot and flirting with the bartender.

  I rolled my eyes, apologized to the server again, left the bartender a hefty tip, and then walked out of the bar.

  Grayson wasn’t at happy hour. I hadn’t talked to him all day and I was now officially experiencing withdrawal symptoms: shaking (probably due to the fact that I had no blazer on and it was chilly outside), fatigue (sure, maybe I was tired because I woke up early), and irritability (probably owing that to drunk Hannah more than anything).

  As I walked home, I imagined the various reasons why Grayson had skipped the happy hour. Maybe he was busy with a client or doing something else for work… or maybe he was back with Nicole?

  Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

  I couldn’t help but imagine the entire scene in full detail. She had probably arrived at his apartment wearing some kind of skimpy outfit and then forced him to let her in. She’d probably found a way to convince him to let her stay and then they’d had raucous makeup sex all over his what-I-assume-to-be-badass apartment.

  I stabbed my keycard into my apartment building and pulled the door open. The metal handle hit the concrete wall with a dull thud, but I didn’t care. The concrete was the least of my worries.

  I’d gone to happy hour for Grayson—just like I’d done so many things for Grayson over the last few weeks—and he hadn’t even been there.

  Why wasn’t he there?

  “Cammie?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Grayson stood a few yards down the hallway, half cast in shadows. He was blocking my apartment, leaning back with his hands tucked into his suit pants and his foot propped against the door. The single overhead light was enough to make out the pieces of him that I found irresistible: the strong jaw, the defined cheekbones, the dark brows, and the James Dean attitude.

  He’d been waiting for me.

  “You missed happy hour,” I said, pulling out my key ring to unlock the door. My hands shook with nerves, but I doubted he could see that in the dim lighting.

  “Did you walk home by yourself?” he asked. A polite person would have given me space to unlock the door, but he crowded me, making it so I had to brush against him to reach the lock.

  “I’m home. Does it matter how I got here?” I asked, turning the key in the lock.

  “Where’s Hannah?” he asked.

  I turned to glance up at him and froze when I realized how close we were to one another. If he bent down an inch or if I stood on my toes, our mouths would meet and my heart would splinter into two parts: one that belonged to me and one that would always belong to Grayson.

  “Back at the bar,” I answered, turning my knob.

  “Good.”

  Grayson pressed one hand to my lower back and used his other hand to push open my apartment door. I didn’t have time to think as he ushered me past the threshold, into my dark apartment.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  My question was met with the sound of my door locking back into place. Clearly he intended on staying. I stepped into the living room, trying to create a safety zone between the two of us.

  I shook my head and turned to face him.

  “Wait, how do you know where I live?”

  He was inspecting my apartment, turning in a slow circle as he pulled his suit jacket off and tossed it onto the arm of my couch.

  “Well you can go if you’re just going to be weird and quiet,” I said after he’d ignored my question.

  He turned to me and smirked. His dark eyes captivated me, shaking my confidence. When I continued to speak, my voice was shaky and softer than it’d been a moment before.

  “I’m tired, Grayson. And stupid Alan gave me extra work so I have to wake up at like four in the morning…”

  My sentence trailed off as Grayson stepped forward and reached for my hands. He gripped them between his palms and pulled me back toward the hallway that branched off to the two bedrooms.

  “You asked me what I was doing here,” he said.

  I nodded, mute. My eyes focused on his lips as he spoke, maybe because they were at eye level or maybe because I knew they were the key to my demise.

  “Do you want to know?” he asked with an arched brow.

  I tried to nod, but Grayson was quicker. He gripped my chin and raised it just before he bent and stole a kiss. I closed my eyes and inhaled the moment as my fingers dug into his biceps. His lips were feather soft but his kiss was rough, full of desire and impatience for things to come.

  My body moved instinctively, pressing against him and pushing him in the direction of my doorway. His hands drifted up into my hair, twisting the strands between his fingers and using them to tilt my head to the side so that he could deepen our kiss.

  We backed up into my bedroom together slowly, clumsily. I jabbed him with my elbow. Our knees crashed together as we tried to sync our steps. He tripped over a pair of my heels in the hallway and I laughed, carefully stepping over them before we fell through my open bedroom door.

  He kicked the bedroom door closed behind us and we were finally, blissfully alone in my room. Thin shafts of light streamed in from the window beside my bed, and Grayson didn’t bother with turning on the light switch.

  “Do you want this?” he asked, reaching for the hem of my blouse, already working it up over my stomach before I could reply.

  My mouth dropped.

  Who the hell was this person and how was I supposed to keep up?

  “I… think so,” I answered, proud of the truth.

  I wanted to do this. God, I wanted to do anything with this man. But to say I was scared of the aftermath was an understatement. It was impossible to lose myself in the moment as he gently tugged my blouse over my head. My mind worked overtime, firing off question after question.

  Why did he suddenly want me?

  Was he drunk?

  What would happen tomorrow when he was back to wanting nothing to do with me?

  “Relax,” he whispered as my silk blouse brushed against my cheeks on its way over my head. The cool air conditioning hit my bare skin and I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand there as he undressed me. We had to be on an even playing field.
I reached for the top button of his shirt and slowly worked each button loose until I could slide my hands inside, over his hard chest, and push the shirt to the ground.

  “How many men have you been with?” he asked, twisting me around and pulling me back to press our bodies together. His pecs brushed the top of my shoulder blades. His arms encircled me. He bent to take my earlobe between his teeth as his palms slid down the front of my stomach, down over my belly button. My muscles tensed with nerves, but his hand continued its descent as my head fell back against his shoulder.

  “How many?” he asked again. His lips tickled my earlobe as he spoke.

  “A few,” I answered, truthfully. I hadn’t counted. Maybe five or six, but he didn’t need to know the exact number.

  “Were you in love with any of them?” he asked, keeping one hand on the base of my stomach as his other hand trailed up the center of my chest, over the lace of my bra and around the edge of each cup.

  “Not always.”

  My eyes fluttered closed for a moment.

  “And what about you? Do I even want to know?” I asked.

  His right hand unbuttoned the top of my pants as his left hand slid the strap of my bra down over my shoulder. I let his touch roam over my skin, trying to ignore the sound of my heavy breath in the silent room. His right hand slid farther down my stomach, inside the waistband of my pants and then past the hem of my panties. I squeezed my eyes closed harder and gripped the front of his thighs as my heart rioted inside of my chest.

  “Enough,” he answered, emphasizing the final syllable by sliding a finger inside of me.

  I bit down on my bottom lip to keep from crying out. It was all too much, a complete sensory overload. My mind was screaming, “Why me? Why now?” and my heart was yelling, “Shut up and enjoy the ride.”

  I’d never experienced someone like him. I’d fumbled around with guys in college, boys who were curious and just as nervous as I’d been. Grayson was confidence personified as he unhooked my bra and tossed it the ground, taking control of the situation in a way that left me breathless.

  “Did you mean it the other day when you said you just wanted to play around?” he asked, throwing my words back to me. I’d uttered them in a moment of confidence, and now I was going to have to back them up. Either that, or ask him to stop. For a moment, I stood there, thinking over my options.

  Then I let a slow smile unfold across my lips.

  “We want the same thing, Grayson,” I said before stepping out of his grasp and spinning around to face him. I was already naked from the waist up, but I could take it a step further, showing him just how serious I was.

  I backed up to the edge of my bed and met his sharp blue eyes as I hooked my fingers around the hem of my pants and underwear. I shimmied my hips as I slid the material down and then let it drop to the floor.

  Neither one of us spoke as he stood, scanning my bare skin in the moonlight streaming through my window. That exposure that comes with allowing someone to see all of you never gets easier to handle, but I stood still, letting him get his fill until he wanted more.

  He moved fast, stepping forward and pushing me back until I fell onto the rumpled blankets on my bed.

  My hand reached forward for the pocket of his suit pants and I used my grip on the silky fabric to tug him forward so that his weight fell onto me. For a few delicious seconds I felt suffocated by him, by his weight and presence crushing me against my soft blankets.

  He stared down at me with a newfound desire just before he bent to steal another kiss. From that moment on, I was a puppet under Grayson’s strings. Each part of my body reacted so willingly to his touch. I tried to keep up, to tease him like he teased me, but he wasn’t having it. Our lips fought, pressed together so hard that his breath was my breath, his lips were my lips.

  The rest of his clothes hit the floor and my sanity slipped away with them.

  I clawed the sheets as he slid into me. He was over me, his gaze holding mine. My eyes started to water but he couldn’t tell in the moonlight. It was just the two of us, giving in to the one thing we’d wanted from the very beginning.

  “How long have you wanted this?” he whispered into my ear as his hips rolled with mine.

  I felt his cheek against my lips as I pulled him down to me.

  When I answered, my eyes were closed and my heart was trying desperately to stay whole, in one piece and out of Grayson’s grasp.

  “Always.”

  …

  I woke up sometime later to the sound of my apartment door slamming shut. A drunk Hannah stumbled in, giggling as she made her way through the apartment. A loud thud, shuffling feet, and more giggles hinted at the fact that she’d probably just tripped over the same pair of high heels that Grayson had only a few hours earlier.

  I turned my head to see Grayson staring up at the ceiling, awake as well. Chances were, he was contemplating the very things that were running through my own mind. We’d just had sex. Rock-your-mama’s-socks-off sex, but now we had to repackage our relationship as best as possible.

  I kept repeating the same phrases over and over again in my head: “This changes nothing. You did what you wanted to do. Now move on. This changes nothing. You did what you wanted to do. Now move on.”

  “You need to distract Hannah while I leave,” he said, pushing off the bed. I stayed still for a moment, studying the contours of his body before he found his pants and pulled them on in one deft motion.

  I didn’t want to be sad that he was leaving. I would have left too if I were him. What were we going to do? Snuggle up together and fall sleep, then wake up and make breakfast together? That scenario didn’t fit into our reality, so I pushed the pang of sadness aside and tried to make the best of the situation.

  “Can’t you just go out the window like they do in the movies?” I asked with a cheeky smile.

  He shot me a deathly glance that was more charming than threatening, but I still pushed myself up off my bed.

  “It’s up to you. Do you want your roommate knowing that I was here?” he asked, reaching for his shirt and slipping it back on. There were far more wrinkles in it now that it’d made its debut on my bedroom floor. Even with the wrinkles, when he had his shirt and suit pants back on, he looked far more like the CEO of Cole Designs and far less like the man who’d waited for me outside of my apartment earlier that night.

  I found my robe behind my closet door and pulled it on before heading toward my door. I reached for the knob and glanced back. Grayson was standing there encased in moonlight, watching me watch him. There was so much to say and yet neither of us spoke a word.

  I opened the door a smidgen and pushed through, praying that Hannah wasn’t standing on the other side.

  She wasn’t. She was in our shared bathroom at the end of the hallway, brushing her teeth and leaning heavily on the counter.

  “Hannah! You’re home!” My acting was mediocre at best, but at least she was probably too drunk to notice.

  “Hey roomie,” she said, not bothering to pull her toothbrush out of her mouth. Toothpaste sprayed across the mirror and Hannah erupted in a fit of giggles. Yeah, hilarious.

  “Here, let me help you with that,” I said, stepping into the bathroom and pulling the door closed behind me so that Grayson could sneak out without being seen.

  Hannah kept right on brushing her teeth as I barricaded the door closed as casually as possible. I listened as she spit out details of her night—at least I thought that’s what she was saying over the sound of the electric tooth brush—but my hearing was actually tuned to the front door as I waited for the audible click.

  “You missed so much!” she exclaimed, leaning over the sink and using toilet paper to wipe away her eye makeup. It wasn’t working very well, but she didn’t seem to mind. “You and Grayson were both missing! Grayson, ugh. I wish he had showed up. I really wanted to have a drink with him.” I nodded while my cheeks flamed red. Would she still be raving about Grayson if she knew what had just taken
place?

  “He was supposed to be there. He would have looked so fucking hot in one of those suits he always wears.” She continued droning on about him, but my emotions were too raw to handle a drunk version of Hannah raving about Grayson. My Grayson. I left her to finish up in the bathroom and stepped back out into the hallway with a tinge of hope still burning. Maybe he hadn’t left. Maybe he was still in my room.

  When I got to the doorway of my room and found it empty, I breathed in the taste of disappointment. My eyes swept over the dark space to take in the crumpled bed sheets, my clothes scattered across the floor, the condom wrapper left on my nightstand. Grayson had ripped it open with his mouth in the heat of the moment. Those things were the only evidence that Grayson had been there at all and yet they weren’t enough to sustain me.

  This changes nothing. You did what you wanted to do. Now move on.

  I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, wondering what I was supposed to do. Go to sleep? Wake up and go through the motions?

  This changes nothing. You did what you wanted to do. Now move on.

  I moved to my bed and breathed in the remnants of Grayson’s cologne and aftershave. I crawled onto the very center of the sheets, where his scent was the strongest, and wrapped my bedding around myself. With every inhale, I breathed in his aftershave, and with every exhale, I reminded myself that nothing was different.

  Now move on.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Despite my best efforts to get rid of her, Hannah stood next to me in the office’s kitchen Tuesday morning, sipping her coffee and getting on my last nerve.

  “I can’t wait until I see Grayson,” she said, leaning against the counter with a dreamy look in her eyes. “I’m going to find out why he didn’t show up to the bar last night.”