Page 42 of Getting Down to Business

“I’m changing my wish so you’ll get the job and I’ll stop being selfish.” Freddie blew her a kiss and went to his desk.

“I don’t care what floor you work on. We will still get together for drinks sometimes.”

“Definitely.” Alyssa only then realized how long it had been since she’d gone out with Mia. She’d been spending all her time with Gray.

She needed to fix that before he got the wrong idea.

Alyssa didn’t get the call on Wednesday. She’d tried to gain some distance with Grayson, but he didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he came into her room to talk to her, even sitting on her bed for an hour while they discussed the guy at his gym who made sex sounds when he lifted weights.

She didn’t hear anything on Thursday either. And Grayson seemed off that night when he got home. He didn’t sing in the shower, or make any jokes about her getting in the kitchen and making him a pie, like he normally did when it was her night to cook.

“Bad day?” she asked.

“Not really.”

“Do you not like sesame chicken?” she pushed. He’d only eaten one piece with two beers. Not that she was counting.

“I guess I’m not that hungry.”

Red flags were going up everywhere. A man who was not hungry was a man with a problem. Everyone knew that.

She decided to back off, since he didn’t seem to want to talk about it, and because they were only roommates. This meant her responsibility ended with paying the rent, not making him happy. Although she would have tried if she’d known how.

Then she wondered if this wasn’t about him at all.

“It’s the job? You heard they hired someone and you don’t want to tell me?” she accused after storming into his room without knocking.

“No. I haven’t heard anything. I’d tell you. I swear. I told you not to worry about it. They never do anything on time. I doubt you’ll hear anything until next week.” She nodded. It did seem like Martin moved at his own pace. As if he owned the place or something.

As the night went on, Gray seemed a little better. He wished her a good night as they passed in the hallway.

She took a deep breath as she got into bed, hoping for another night free of nightmares. As she reached for the light by the bed, there was a knock at the door and her heart rate kicked up.

“Yeah?” she called.

Gray poked his head inside.

“You got a minute? As a friend?” he asked.

“Okay.” She sat up, making sure the sheet was tucked around all the important parts. “What is it?”

“I need your advice.”

“On?”

“I let this girl move into my apartment. Smokin’ hot. Only we’re supposed to just be friends, which is great and I don’t want to mess it up. The problem is, I hadn’t considered the fact she would be walking around the apartment in shorty shorts and baby tees all the time with no bra. And since I’ve already had amazing sex with her multiple times, I know how great it is. So basically I have a perpetual hard-on so bad I’m light-headed from the lack of blood going to my brain.”

She snickered at his gush of information.

“So you want to find a way to ask her to stop wearing shorty shorts?” she assumed.

“Hell, no. I want you to tell me how I can renegotiate this friends-only thing so I can sleep with her again.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. She thought he was on board with this arrangement. He hadn’t so much as hinted at having sex with her since they moved in together. She needed him to be the stable one, because she was already faltering after seeing him without a shirt while he brushed his teeth this morning.

“Uh…well…” She tried to come up with an answer that would dissuade him from pursuing her, but the truth was, she wanted the same thing. “Give me a sec.”

She picked up her phone, her thumbs flying as she texted Kenley: