I’ve reset the clock to keep my eye on the time.

I see the road. But even more I see Riley.

That wasn’t supposed to happen. Nobody can know it did, and when I can bring myself to talk to her again, I need to make sure she doesn’t tell anyone. Not her friends, and of course not her father. Then I need to make sure she understands how our relationship, such as it is, needs to proceed going forward.

Meaning: We have no relationship. We don’t even really know each other. We interact as little as possible at work, assuming she doesn’t get me fired over this. Which she may. She didn’t look happy back there, and that made me feel guilty, like maybe I should do something to assuage it. There were two of us in that truck bed last night, and two of us came away not wanting to talk to the other. Even making sure she understood just how much I didn’t want to talk would have been better than what I did, which was to turn my head.

But from here on out, I’ll be unable to even hear my company’s name without thinking of the person behind the moniker. I’ll be unable to imagine her face. Because if I do, it’s a slippery slope to seeing the curve of her neck and shoulders, the swell of her breasts. I know things about Riley James that few people do. I know she has two small beauty marks below her bikini line. I know how she sounds, inches from my ear, when she comes.

I don’t want to think about it, but with the dark street ahead, my mind won’t leave it alone.

After a few minutes, my preoccupation thickens with something like panic. As much as I’d like to pretend I can avoid Riley, I can’t. I don’t have to work closely with her, but I’ll definitely have to see her. And right now, it’s hard to imagine seeing her without remembering the beautiful lines of her body. It’s hard to imagine I’ll be able to look at her wide, white smile without recalling the way she used those same teeth to leave bites on my neck.

My hand trails upward, feeling the indentations.

I want more.

God help me, I want more.

There’s so much we didn’t do. It was too fast to savor. I eventually yanked her dress up enough to see her breasts, for visual stimulation, but it all happened so fast. I didn’t get to undress her and appreciate every detail. She was never on top, and as I drive, I can’t stop picturing how that would look and how much I want to see it, to feel her taking control … then losing it.

I grip the wheel harder. The sensation anchors me, and the feeling like panic comes storming back.

I’ve had sex with plenty of women. When things get bad, I have a predictable pattern: drink hard then make the rounds. I’ve never had trouble scoring; hooking up has always been as simple as leaving my apartment. But not once, afterward, have I felt this sense of unmitigated pull. Once I’m done, I’m done. But with Riley, it’s as if we never hooked up at all. I’m still in the yearning phase, before we’ve popped the cork, while all my focus is still on trying to get her naked. It’s impossible to believe we’ve already had sex, that it’s already over.

It seems so unfair. If I’ve ruined everything for her, I should at least feel satisfied. But I don’t. As far as satisfaction goes, we might as well be courting like an Amish couple.

She’s like chocolate. Having some apparently doesn’t scratch the itch. Having some apparently makes me want more.

What if it stays like this? What if I feel like this every time I see her from now on?

But that’s ridiculous. I only feel this way because it was so intense and is still so recent. This doesn’t even count as a new day. There’s no new day until I get a decent night’s sleep. No wonder I’m still preoccupied.

It’ll pass.

It always passes.

I’ve been with other women whom I’ve thought about afterward. For sure. Riley will be like them. Tomorrow, I won’t care. And if I’m still thinking about her then — if the hunger still remains unquenched — then I can go out and find someone to preoccupy me.

Anyone but Mason’s daughter. Anyone who, for a normal person, there’d be the chance of a future with. That’s never been the way I’ve approached these things, no matter what Bridget thinks I should do, but it’s the right framework.

I can never be with Riley again. The best thing to do is forget. For me, and for her.

I reach this decision and feel better.

Then I blink up and realize that my scheming hands and feet have failed me, and I’ve driven in the wrong direction.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Brandon 

S HIT .

I’VE NEVER BEEN GOOD at managing time. It feels so malleable. On the rare occasion that I’m running early for something, I never just go and allow myself to be early. Instead, I find something else to do with the extra imagined minutes then end up rushing.

When I woke up, it wasn’t yet 5 a.m. That seemed so far from 7 a.m., it was a joke.

But then I had to text Bridget.

I had to drive home, to shower and change, and given that I needed to cross Old Town to get there, it wasn’t as close as I’d figured.

Then I drove the wrong direction and ended up way the hell over past Hudson. It wasn’t a long detour to get my ass back on track and headed toward the edge of Tiny Amsterdam, but it cost me a good ten minutes.

It all seemed fine. I even checked my dashboard clock a few times, knowing I was okay. But then my terrible sense of time intervened, and it’s like I became incapable of making simple calculations.

By the time I pull into the Regency lot, it’s 6:21. What’s more, I’m pretty sure that clock is a few minutes slow, though I’m afraid to check my phone to be sure.

And still I just stare at the display so I can waste another thirty seconds.

Cherry Hill, where Life of Riley is located, is a good half hour away. That’s if I don’t get caught in traffic. And technically, it’s Cherry Hill and Old Town that are thirty minutes apart, and I’m past Old Town. But one crisis at a time.

And it’s not like I can turn around now, without going in, and haul ass to Cherry Hill. I’d make it in time, sure. But I’d also arrive in last night’s clothes, which are rumpled and a little greasy from the crap in the back of my truck. I’d also arrive with Riley’s lipstick on my collar. And, if Mason is observant, with her light perfume all over me.

Not the impression I want to give. It’s unprofessional, what with that whole screwed-the-boss’s-daughter vibe.

My paralysis breaks. I don’t know how I’ll manage to turn around in under five minutes, but there’s a chance, and I can make up some time on the road if I drive fast. I just know that sitting where I am won’t help.

I leave the truck running just in case the battery decides to die. In this neighborhood, I’d give it a 50/50 chance of being stolen that way, so I make sure to lock the doors and hang onto the key. Then I haul ass upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, knowing that sprinting instead of waiting calmly for the elevator isn’t going to do things for my post-shower perspiration.

Once inside the apartment, I make an executive decision: Coffee will be required. I can’t imagine I look remotely rested, and when I’m overly tired, I get raccoon eyes. Definitely not pro. I pop a cup in the Keurig, which of course no longer has water in the reservoir. I handle that while turning on the shower, shaving a few seconds by filling the reservoir right from the showerhead. Then it’s back to the kitchen, and the shower, clothes flying off like prom night.