LITMIR.BIZ

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wise to him to avoid any kind of complications that would impact his friendship with Garrett.

      Idiot.

      “Dude, you’re staring at her,” Garrett Mulligan observed, handing him a beer.

      Hoop dumped his club soda on the tray of a passing waiter and took the beer from Garrett. Garrett was his best friend and a cop. They’d known each other since high school when Garrett’s parents had become his surrogate family. Garrett was the reason why he’d screwed up with Cici.

      “It’s all your fault.”

      “How do you figure?” Garrett asked.

      “If you hadn’t been dating Hayley then I could have comfortably had my usual fling with Cici and moved on.”

      “If I hadn’t been dating Hayley you never would have met her.”

      “Fair point.”

      Hoop took a swallow of his beer and skimmed the room, hoping that some other woman would catch his eye. But no one did. It was Cici for him. It was as if the moment he’d told her that a few hot kisses were all they’d ever share, fate had a deep chuckle at his expense and made her impossible to forget.

      “So…”

      “So?”

      “Are you going to go talk to her or continue to try to stare her down from here?” Garrett asked.

      The party was to celebrate the start of summer and a new menu at the Candied Apple & Cafe. The trendy Fifth Avenue confectionery that was co-owned by Garrett’s fiancée Hayley, Cici and their friend Iona.

      “Possibly. She’s been avoiding me. I’ve called her a dozen times.”

      “I’ve never known you to let something like that stop you,” Garrett remarked with a laugh.

      Hoop thought about it, and then finished his beer with one deep swallow. He wasn’t going to let it stop him. He couldn’t. He had been dating a lot the last three months since their one date. Sad that he knew exactly how long it had been, but there it was. Every time he leaned in to kiss another woman, he compared it to Cici. Every time he made another woman laugh, he remembered how much he liked Cici’s laugh. Maybe it was that he’d put her off limits. Something that could be easily fixed if he could go out on one date with her. But she had moved on.

      Now he was panting after her…well not exactly panting…but close enough.

      He handed his empty bottle to a passing waiter and moved through the throng of party goers toward Cici. She wore a sundress that hugged her endless curves and ended just above her knees. It was a straight sort of A-line skirt with a fitted bodice and as he got closer he noticed that she wore a thin gold necklace and the charm had moved around to nestle at the back of her neck.

      She said something he couldn’t hear and the man she was talking to responded and then she laughed. He felt a bolt of awareness go through him along with a tinge of jealousy. Another man had made her laugh.

      He knew it was irrational. He’d been the one to push her away, but this weird emotion that she inspired in him wasn’t rational.

      “Cici,” he said softly, coming up behind her and putting his hand on the small of her back. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen you.”

      She tensed immediately and he noticed that goose pimples spread down her arm as she turned to look at him. She pushed her glasses up her nose. Her bow-shaped mouth parted and her lips seemed to beckon him, but he knew that was just his own desires and not necessarily hers.

      “Hoop. I didn’t realize you were at the party,” she said. “Do you know Theo? He’s Iona’s brother.”

      “I do,” Hoop said, holding his hand out toward the young Greek man. Iona’s brother looked like he should be in Hollywood, starring in the big movies. Not tending bar three nights a week at a night club and DJing in his spare time. Theo shook his hand and then moved on to talk to another group of people.

      Cici delicately took a step to the left, breaking contact with the hand he’d placed on her back.

      “How have you been?” she asked.

      “Not bad. How about yourself?” he countered. Small talk. Really? This was what he was reduced to.

      “I’m okay. Listen, I’m really embarrassed that I haven’t called you back,” she said.

      “You are?”

      “Yes. It’s awkward, right? Our best friends are engaged and I’m dodging your calls. It’s just, I was embarrassed after that night we all went out.”

      Hoop was afraid it was something like that. He had been so firm in saying no to her. “Well, I’m the one who screwed up and I’d appreciate it if you’d let me make it up to you.”

      “How?” she asked.

      “Drinks. Nothing too heavy, just drinks.”

      How about lame, how much lamer could this get? But the fact that he hadn’t been able to forget her had knocked him off balance. Made him wonder what it was his conscious mind didn’t see that his subconscious did.

      “I can’t. I’m…I just can’t,” she said quickly, walking away without a backward glance.

      He stood there.

      Fair enough, he thought, but another part of him didn’t want to let her go.

      He followed her out onto the terrace that overlooked Central Park. The sun was setting and she stood near the edge of the balcony with her face turned toward the tepid breeze that blew.

      “Why?” he asked, staying where he was just on the threshold of the balcony.

      “Why what?” she too asked, turning toward him. The wind blew her curly hair around her face and she reached up to push a strand back behind her ear.

      “I guess I should have said why not?” he elaborated.

      “Our friends are engaged now. They were just dating before,” she said. “Nothing has really changed. And I don’t want to have to start avoiding them.”

      “What if things worked out between us?” he asked, taking a step closer.

      “If you really believed that you wouldn’t have pushed me away that night at Olympus,” she said. “Let’s just be friends.”

      “Friends?”

      “We can do that right?”

      “Yes,” he said. But inside, every male instinct he had said no. He’d been friend-zoned by the one woman who he couldn’t get out of his head. She haunted him night and day. He saw her in his dreams and thought of her when a meeting at work droned on. So how was he going to be “just friends” with her now?

      Cici spent the next week avoiding her friends and staying in her office. She had to file their quarterly earnings so she was kept busy. She kept the door to her office closed but she still could hear the bustle of Hayley and her staff working in the kitchen.

      Carolyn, the assistant manager of the store, had been bringing her fresh strawberries dipped in chocolate and apple and seltzer water iced drinks that kept Cici cool while she worked.

      “Figured you could use one of these,” Carolyn said.

      The other woman was five foot, five inches tall and wore her brown hair in a high ponytail. She had an easy smile and an aggressive eye for retail space. Every time Carolyn came into her office Cici suspected the woman was going to ask for more money.

      “Thanks, I am thirsty.”

      “Good, got a minute?” Carolyn asked.

      “I do, but your budget is fixed,” Cici said with a smile as she took a sip of her cool drink.

      “Oh, it’s not about the store. I heard you were subletting your

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