Distinguished Service & Every Move You Make (Uniformly Hot!) by Tori Carrington

the sofa they sat on boasted a chintzy flowery upholstery, the rest of the furniture was almost mission style, and there wasn’t another flower in the place. He’d noticed the dining room didn’t boast the traditional table, but was rather an office…and a working one at that. He recalled her telling him she was also a graphics designer and that she had nearly built her client list up to the point where she could permanently quit working Rocky’s. But she said she liked the routine, and could see herself still working part-time for some while yet, if just to make sure she got out of her apartment regularly.
    Besides, she’d told him, some of her best ideas came while she was watching a customer’s face as he or she tried to decide between the open-faced roast beef sandwich or the closed.
    Of course, he could have done without that particular comparison; it made him think of edging something else open…
    “It’s complicated,” he said, continuing his thread of thought. “I mean, I loved her. God knows I loved her. I would never think of doing to her what she did to me. It just wasn’t a consideration. My parents…well, they’ve been married for over thirty years and to my knowledge, neither of them have ever looked at anyone else, much less been unfaithful.”
    Geneva nodded. “I understand. When you love somebody, well…”
    She left her sentence unfinished.
    So, he tried to put a period on both. “What I’m trying to say, I guess, is that yes, in some ways, you’re right. I’m not over it. But the emphasis is on the ‘it.’ Not Janine herself, but what happened between us at the end of our relationship.” He sipped his coffee. “I thought I was over it, had moved on. Until…”
    “Until she called.”
    He held her gaze. “Yeah. Until she called.”
    “So I’m guessing you just tucked those feelings away into a neat little box—or tried to, anyway—and now, well, now the lid’s off and they’re tumbling back out at you again.”
    “More like a lasso around my ankles.”
    Her expression was so soft, so understanding, he felt something shift inside him merely looking at her.
    “I wish it wasn’t that way. I mean, who in their right mind would want to feel this way? But…”
    “But it is what it is.”
    “Yeah. In a nutshell.”
    He watched the way she smoothed her hand over her tucked legs, back and forth, forth and back.
    “Have you ever been in love?” he found himself asking.
    Her hand stopped midcalf. “Pardon me?”
    He smiled, knowing by her reaction that she’d heard him.
    She looked down into the contents of her cup. He wanted to tell her she wasn’t going to find the answers there. Then again, who was he to say? Maybe that’s where they’d be. And he might be better served looking into his own cup before asking stupid questions like the one he just did.
    “Yeah,” she said. “Or at least I thought so at the time. The guy I followed here…”
    The chirp of his cell phone didn’t so much as cut her off—he guessed she hadn’t intended to go any further—as it did give him the reprieve he was looking for.
    “I’m sorry,” he said.
    He took the phone out: Jonathon Reece.
    “I have to take this.”
    “Go ahead. No need to apologize.”
    He got up. “Harrison,” he said simply.
    Upon leaving the Denver hotel earlier, he’d appointed Jon as contact. So he wasn’t surprised now to hear that tomorrow morning’s pre-event route run-through had been moved up a half hour by Norman’s people.
    “See you fifteen minutes before then.”
    “I’ll be there. Oh, and look for the changes you suggested in your email box by day’s end.”
    “Thanks.”
    He disconnected and turned to find Geneva staring off at something he couldn’t see. A result of his question? Her earlier comment? Or something else entirely?
    He couldn’t be sure.
    What he was sure of was he wanted to know more about went on in her mind.
    “Sorry about that,” he apologized again.
    “That’s all