I wondered if I had any hope of covering what had just come out of my mouth.

“What?” I asked playing dumb, swallowing hard.

Adrian searched my face breathing heavily and I felt like I stood a chance because if I didn’t, he would have been up off me. I took his face in my hands and kissed him softly.

“What is it?” I asked doing all I could to convince him that he hadn’t really heard what he thought he had heard..

“Sorry I thought I heard you say…” he started to say and appeared like he might have been mistaken.

“Oh Jesus…I said Oh Jesus…should I not have said that?” Kicking women out of Justin’s apartment had taught me to lie so well.

“No, it’s fine, I just thought you said…something else, forget it,” he breathed returning to my kiss and after a few kisses, I turned my head and guided his lips towards my neck.

I clenched my eyes shut and mouthed the work “fuck” silently to myself unable to believe I just did that.

I may have been able to convince Adrian that there wasn’t anyone else on my mind, and I didn’t know if maybe it was simply the fact that Estelle had planted those stupid seeds in my head about my relationship with Justin, but as I stared up at the ceiling with Adrian kissing my neck and his hands beneath my shirt, I was now too busy analyzing my slip up to feel Adrian’s touch as vividly as before.

I had to decide quickly if I was able to carry on with this now that my heart wasn’t in it. At least not as much as it was five minutes ago.

His hand closing around my breast quickly delivered me my answer.

I covered his hand with mine and pulled it out from beneath my shirt.

“Adrian,” I said and again he lifted his head and stared down at me knowing what was coming.

“I know, I know. Too fast, I’m sorry,” he said and I felt bad that he was apologizing when really, if he knew what was going on inside my head, then it would be me who needed to do the apologizing.

“I’m sorry too, I didn’t mean to lead you on. I thought I wanted to…and I do,” I started to explain, but he seemed to know where I was going with it and took comfort in the fact that I wasn’t saying no, just not now.

We both sat up awkwardly from our horizontal position on the couch and I reached over to smooth down Adrian’s disheveled hair and when he smiled I regretted stopping where we were headed.

I wanted him and I really did like him a lot.

Maybe I just needed a day or two to get used to the idea, or maybe spend an hour or so with Justin just to remind me that even if I had the slightest shred of attraction towards him, that he and I were chalk and cheese and could not even agree on whether or not the weather was pleasant or not.

But Adrian.

Adrian, I could see it working with.

“I should probably head home,” he said and I nodded in understanding.

“Okay.”

“But I will see you tomorrow,” he said climbing to his feet and I stood from the couch and walked with him slowly to my front door.

Once there I was sure to give him a kiss that would reassure him that I was indeed very interested in him and kissing him.We wished each other goodnight and I stayed out in the hallway until he was in the elevator and gone.

Heading back into my apartment I sighed and rubbed my forehead.I looked into my apartment and was immediately mad at myself.

I looked at the unopened wine on my coffee table and shook my head picking it up and examining the label.

It was French and though I told Justin to give me something I could easily replace, I guessed that this bottle of wine was anything but and decided quickly that since it wasn’t opened, I should take it back.   

“Yeah.” His voice crackled over the intercom.

“It’s me,” my voice was flat as dejected sounding but I couldn’t have made myself be any chirpier.

“Come on up.”

He promptly buzzed me and I began the trek up to his secure suite.

When I reached his floor, his door was open and I let myself in.

He was on his couch in the dark watching television and I shuffled in, and placed the wine on his coffee table and plonked myself down in the seat across from him.

“Strike out?” He asked quietly, a pained expression on my face telling him everything he needed to know.“What happened?”

Well I sure couldn’t tell him.I just shrugged and shook my head.

“Nothing, I just…I don’t know”

I looked up and saw him looking at me, the glow from the television lighting up his face.

And suddenly it happened again.That stomach dropping, heart skipping a beat thing that it had done earlier on that night when I came to borrow the wine.

Justin stood and took the wine from the coffee table into the kitchen. I heard him pouring and sighed, thinking wine was just what I needed right now.

I wanted to go beyond buzzed into numb.

For a long time we just sat on the couches, not watching the television or either acknowledging each other really.We weren’t talking. We were just drinking and staring directly ahead at nothing, completely devoid of any conversation.

I know that we did that from time to time, but this time it felt uncomfortable and inappropriate.I wondered if he was watching me out of the corner of his eye like I was him.

I couldn’t believe that the one time I wished that he was talking my ear off was the one time that he didn’t seem to have anything to say.

It was making me restless, but I didn’t want to go home, so I shuffled and squirmed in my seat, leaning forwards and reclining back.

I would put my feet up and the drop them down.

“You have the worst sofas on earth,” I complained resigning myself to the fact that maybe I would have to do the talking.

“But they look nice in photographs,” he said not removing his eyes form the television.

“Yeah well, that’s important too I guess,” I said finally giving up and taking my glass of wine over to his window where I stood looking down at the street.

This was pointless. We weren’t talking, he didn’t appear to be in the mood for company and I was going to be drunk in a minute.

“I’m going home,” I announced decidedly with a nod of my head.

That seemed to wake him up a bit.

“Why? It’s not even ten.”

“Because I’m bored and drunk. Bad combo.”

“Why is it bad?”

I wasn’t quite sure how to answer that without being explicit and he didn’t need to know so I just shrugged and shook my head.

“It just is.”

“You going to tell me what happened with Andrew?”

“Adrian”

“Irrelevant,” he shrugged flippantly, stirring embers of fire in my belly with his arrogance.

But this is what I was after! He was starting.

The short answer was no. I wasn’t going to tell him exactly what happened, obviously. But I would tell him most of it.

“Well, we kind of started to but…I was thinking of someone else and-“

“Oh god-“ he said immediately guessing the rest.

“Well, yeah…that’s probably what I should have said…anyway…I don’t think he heard it, but after that…it was just a debacle,” I explained waving my hand like I didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

“I don’t get it you’ve been talking about his guy every day for two weeks.”

“I know!”

“And who’s this other dude?”

“No one you know,” I lied “It was just stupid and I freaked out and stopped the whole thing. He went home and…I came here to drink your booze. Yay.”

“Was he mad?“

"No. Thank God! He’s too sweet to be mad. I made it sound like I couldn’t go through with it because of the whole “oh, I’m just not ready,” you know that oldie, but in this case a goodie.”

“Were you ready?”

“So, so very ready, I just can’t believe my brain made my mouth say…what it said! I’m such a doodle head!”

“So this other guy…” Justin asked curiously and I decided to stop him in his tracks.

“No…definitely not.”

“But you’re attracted to him?”

“No!”

“Bullshit,” he said skeptically settling back into his seat.

“I’m not I am really not, and that’s the weirdest part about it, I don’t have any…not the slightest…just…no.”

“Well obviously, y’do” he replied and I knew he was right, but I didn’t want him to know he was.“What’s the big deal about it anyway? Sometimes you get attracted to people who turn you off. I do. It’s kind of primal right, because you’re not thinking anything nice about this person so it kind of satisfies that sadistic, really nasty, gritty part of your brain that doesn’t want silk sheets, rose petals and champagne. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

I visibly shuddered.

Justin didn’t know it but he was talking about himself and it was so very wrong.

“I’m telling you, take this repulsive dude somewhere for a dirty weekend, fuck his brains out, it’ll be out of your system, you’ll regret it and want to kill yourself and then you’ll come back see Andrew-“

“Adrian.”

“Irrelevant…and everything will be as it should.”

“I don’t feel that that’s good advice,” I said righteously.

“Well what do you want me to say?”

“That this other guy is not an issue. And it was a one off. And that considering I don’t even like the guy, then there is nothing to worry about.”

“Why do you need me to delude you, when you’re perfectly capable of doing it yourself Sophie,” he sighed turning back to the television and fiddling with the corner of a decorative cushion. “What’s so repulsive about this other guy anyway is he that unaesthetic?”

I sighed. We were venturing into dangerous waters with this guessing game, but maybe on some level I wanted him to know it was him.

“No. He’s not unaesthetic at all. There isn’t really anything wrong with him, he’s fine and I’m sure one day he’ll make some woman very happy, but he wouldn’t be good for me and we’re two very different people it would be like…” I trailed off trying to think of something it would be similar to.

“You and I,” he suggested and I was almost relieved to hear him say that. I was starting to get a little fearless in my curiosity and began leading the conversation.

“Yes! It would be like you and I having sex,” I said trying to illustrate with my tone how ridiculous a notion it should have seemed, but he just shrugged.

“Why couldn’t you and I have sex, I think we’d have great sex.”

I thought I wanted to hear that but then I did and I pictured Adrian and I suddenly remembered why I didn’t want Justin to know that it was him on my mind.

“No we wouldn’t.”

Heat was building up in my face.

“Sure we would”

‘No we wouldn’t. Besides, we don’t have that kind of relationship, I mean we barely get along, we can’t agree on anything.”

“Opposing energy makes for some incredible sexual tension.”

“Oh shut up,” I sighed doing my best to sound flippant, but my heart was pounding because I didn’t know if he was just using us as an example or if he was toying with me.

Either way, it was getting very hot in that apartment and kept drinking to compensate.

“I’m just saying, two people don’t have to be in love or even get along to have amazing, explosive sex you know? It’s like I’m the male whore and you’re the up tight librarian, how could that not be hot?”

I opened my mouth to talk but everything I thought to say would only encourage him because I knew that I was a mere sip off the wine doing all the talking for me, so I shut my mouth but I now wanted Justin like some kind of crazy person and I was sure he knew it.

“We’ve gone off topic,” I said calmly after a moment, trying to steer the conversation into more benign waters.

“Yeah we have but since we’re on the subject, aren’t you curious?”

Suddenly Estelle’s voice was in my ear replaying what she had said about men and women being unable to be just friends without the thought of deeper involvement or actual deeper involvement.

“Can girls and guy be just friends?” I asked him suddenly.

“You’re changing the subject,” he said accusingly and I nodded.

“Yes I know, but answer my question first. Can guys and girls be just friends?”

“Yes,” he responded almost instantly with an adamant nod of his head and I was relieved for a moment to hear him say that.

“But not people like you and me,’ he added completely throwing me off yet again and I rolled my eyes and groaned.

“Argh, Justin! What do you mean by that?”

“First answer my question!” He demanded and I played dumb.

“What question?”

“The question about…you know…us?”

I shook my head like I didn’t know what he was saying but only because I thought it was weird that he was censoring himself.“You know…have you ever thought about….us”

I couldn’t believe he was holding his tongue.

“Really Justin? Really? You have the dirtiest mouth and mind I have ever encountered on a person and now you’re having reservations about asking me in words, if I’ve ever envisaged us fucking?”

“Try as I might, I probably would never have been able to articulate it as eloquently as that, but yeah, that was what I was trying to say.”

“Well you tell me first.”

“I asked you first,” he said annoyed, rising up to his feet on the opposite side of the coffee table.

“So you can change your response depending on how I answer!”

“No I’ll be honest no matter how you respond, now stop being a chicken shit and tell me.”

He totally cornered me and I was freaking out, but trying not to show it.

I tried to rationalize, wondering what the big deal was if I admitted to him that he was the other guy, but there was something so mortifying about telling someone you had feelings for them no matter how superficial they were and Justin was the worst person in the world I could imagine confessing that too.He was so arrogant and self righteous I just knew he’d use it to toy with me.

Or maybe it was just because deep down I knew that if I told him and he actually made an effort to pursue anything with me even if it was only sex. I wasn’t so sure anymore that I could turn him down.

I was so turned onto him now, and it happened so quickly, overnight, just like that!I felt different about Justin than I did about Adrian.

I was sexually curious about Justin without thinking there was a chance of much else between us and attracted to Adrian knowing that there was every hope of us having a very satisfying relationship.

It seemed an easy choice to make but God, the lure of the bad boy was…well…heaven knows.

Fuck it, I thought finally. I was too drunk for inhibitions and Adrian and I weren’t official.

I stood up from my seat and the wine went from my feet, right to my head and I needed a second to make sure I didn’t lose my balance while trying to appear completely sober.

I was however sober enough to feel the full force of my nerves.

“Adrian was on top of me and I said…” Oh God this was so hard.“I said…”Justin”…Instead of “Adrian”. There, are you happy? I said your name. So yes, obviously I’ve thought about it.”

There I said it.

“But,” I added quickly “it was like, out of nowhere! I mostly despise you, you know that right? Like there isn’t anyone on earth who pushes my buttons as much as you, on purpose, like I am surprised I don’t have stomach ulcers from hanging around you,” I rambled.

Justin didn’t appear shocked, but his chest was rising and falling with a little more height than usual, but then so was mine.

It was like I had just jumped of a bridge.

My arms and legs were tingling and weak, my heart was pounding and the blood rushed all around my head in a confusing swirl and my feet struggled to remain planted as he walked over to my side of the coffee table and stood towering above me.

Even though I’d never felt quite as intimidated by him as I did just then, it was suddenly very clear to me now what I wanted from him.

He collected up the wine bottle and took a long sip directly from it I smiled faintly but awkwardly because he hadn’t yet said anything and I was finding his eyes difficult to read.

Finally a long finger from his other hand scraped a lock of hair from my brow and he sighed, now so close I could smell the wine on him.

“It would be a mistake for us to let our curiosity get the better of us,” he whispered and my heart sunk for a moment, until suddenly I felt his lips on my neck.

Every cell inside froze as he emerged and looked down at me with a very impish smile.

“Wanna make a mistake tonight?” he asked mischievously, the sound of his voice was low and enveloping and I was suddenly overcome by the force of my attraction towards him.

I took the bottle from him with my eyes trained on his and nodded holding the bottle to my lips.

“Yeah I do,” I replied taking one last long sip from the bottle.