Frenemies With Benefits (Geek To Chic Book 2) (22 page)

Maybe she was
tired?
 
He laughed a little that is what
men always wanted to think when a woman looked upset.
 
That they were tired not mad.
 
He knew better.
 
He knew Izzy wasn’t mad at him but at
something that happened at the bar.
 
Maybe one of the other girls had said something to upset her.
 
Or maybe one of them had figured out they
were sleeping together.
 

The elevator stopped on
his floor, he walked to his penthouse condo.
 
Letting himself in and tossing his keys aside.
 
He walked to the fridge for a beer, opened
the fridge, and closed it when he decided that wouldn’t help.
 
He walked into the living room, sat on the
couch, flicking on the TV.
 
He watched
five minutes.
 
Nope that wasn’t holding
his interest.
 
He paced to the French
doors leading to his patio.
 
Walking out
into the cold, he sat down on the end of the chase lounge.
 
Head in his hands.
 

With a deep breath, he
pulled out his iPhone.
 
Needing to at
least check on her.
 

Alex:
 
Hey, babe.
 
You ok?

Izzy:
 
Yep

Alex:
 
Liar! Tell me what’s wrong.
 

Izzy:
 
I’m fine.

He shook his head at
that response, no women who ever uttered “I’m fine” meant those words.
 
And any man who took thought a woman who said
“I’m fine” was really fine, was an idiot.
 

Alex:
 
I call bullshit.

Izzy:
 
Call whatever you want.

Alex:
Woman! Just tell me what the fuck has your panties in a twist!

Izzy:
 
You did not just text me that!

Alex:
 
You bet your sweet ass I did.
 
Now tell me what’s wrong.

Izzy:
 
If you must know it is our arrangement.
 
I think we need to end it.
 

Alex’s heart sputtered
to a stop.
 
He thought they were about to
move beyond this stupid
arrangement
and on to the real relationship he was desperate to have with her.
 
So he said the only thing he could.

Alex:
 
No.

Izzy:
 
You can’t just say no!
 
I have a say too.

Alex:
 
Sorry, not happening.
 

Izzy:
 
Alex stop being an ass!
 

Alex:
 
The answer is still no.
 
END OF DISCUSSION!

Izzy:
Don’t yell at me dick head! I am saying it’s over.
 

Done with the texting
back and forth crap.
 
Alex grabbed his
keys and headed to her apartment.
 
Just
as he got to her door he stopped himself.
 
There was no way she was going to listen to
anything he had to say tonight.
 
He knew
her, knew she was overthinking this thing between them.
 
For once he was going to give her the space
and time to think.
 

Turning, he strolled
whistling right back to his apartment, a better plan formed in his head.
 
Sitting back on his couch, he looked at the
weather report for the next morning.
 
Perfect!
He thought with a smug smile on
his face, as he shut off his phone and headed to bed.
 
He needed to be up early for his plan to work
and well rested to get through that stubborn thick head of Izzy’s.

Izzy felt hung over
when her alarm went off even though she didn’t even have a sip of alcohol the
night before.
 
Stretching as she slid out
of her bed, she figured the hung over feeling came from tossing and turning all
night.
 
She had finally ended it with
Alex.
 
Although, he fought her on it for
all of three texts, she knew it was what he wanted since he never bothered to
text her back.
 

Emotionally she was a
mess.
 
She got what she wanted; she got
the last word in ending their relationship.
 
Yet, she had spent half the night starring at her phone and listening
for a knock on her door, willing Alex to not let her have her way.
 
How messed up is that?
 
“I am such an idiot.”
 
She groaned, grabbing her running clothes.
 

A good run is all she
needed to clear her head and improve her mood.
 
After hearing Caroline talk last night about how Alex was never going to
settle down, Izzy knew that she was wasting her time.
 
She wanted the two point five kids and the
house in the suburbs.
 
Since losing her
parents, all she wanted was a family to belong to again.
 
Her friends’ families had always included her
in all the holidays and celebrations, but she longed to have a family to call
her own.
 
That was not going to happen if
she stayed with Alex.
 

Lacing her running
shoes she set out to drive to Wash Park to run her problems away.
 
In the parking lot of her building she glanced
over and noticed Alex’s car was absent.
 
She snorted; he probably went to the bar right after she dumped him last
night and found a new ‘friend’.
 
The
laughter in her head died instantly at the thought of him with another
woman.
 
The thought turned her stomach if
she was being honest.
 
If she had
bothered to eat more than a banana for breakfast she was sure she would have
vomited.
 

Driving to the park,
she tried to tell herself breaking it off with Alex was for the best. And that
the pain in her chest at the thought of him with another woman was a temporary
feeling.
 
By the time she made it to the
park she almost had herself convinced.
 
She parked and went about her stretching routine, placing her iPhone in
her arm band turning on her running playlist.
 
Imagine Dragons blasted through her earbuds, immediately making her feel
energized.
 

A few miles into the
run, she felt as though someone was following her.
 
The circle around the park was popular, and
really if someone was following her they were just running the same pace she
was.
 
No big deal.
 
Shrugging off the feeling, she pushed herself
harder in her run, attempting to clear the vague painful feeling lingering in
her chest. She increased her pace, figuring she would ditch the runner behind
her and the odd feeling.
 
Another mile
and the feeling was still there.
 
Only
this time the person felt closer despite her increased speed.
 

Now she felt a person
to her right.
 
Good maybe he or she was
passing her and she could relax.
 
Only
they didn’t pass they stayed at her pace.
 
She glanced over to assess the other runner’s intention and halted her
steps.
 
Breathing hard, hands on her hips
she shook her head and ripped the earbuds from her ears.
 
“You scared the shit out of me.
  
What the fuck, Alex?”

“You really do say that
sentence way too often.”
 
The bastard
smirked.
 
“I was out for a run when I saw
you.
 
I thought I would say hi to my
friend.”
 

With her hands still on
her hips, she took in his appearance.
 
He
was indeed dressed for a run, yet he didn’t have his headphones, nor was he
sweating.
 
He looked as though he had
only been running since she first felt someone following her.
 
“You were out for a run without
headphones?”
 

“I thought I would take
in the sounds of nature today.”
 
He
shrugged.
 

“You must not have been
running long, you’re not even sweating.”
 
She questioned.
 

“Some of us don’t
sweat.”
 

“I have run with you
before Alex, and you are a man who sweats.
 
So would you like to revise your story and tell me what exactly it is
you are doing here?
 
I didn’t see your
car in the garage this morning, so I assume you either have been here for a
while or you went out last night and never made it home.”
 
Izzy now stood with her arms crossed over her
chest, face tight with frustration.
 

In one stride, Alex
closed the distance between them.
 
Pushing a wayward hair behind her ear, he brushed her cheek.
 
“And where would I have gone last night,
Izzy?”
 

The space between them
was minimal.
 
Her mind was telling her to
take a step, or twenty, backwards.
 
Put
distance between their bodies.
 
His scent
surrounded her, and enthralled her into a trance like state.
 
She stumbled a little from his overwhelming
presence.
 
His hands were instantly on
her waist, catching her before she fell.
 
“Whoa, are you ok?”
 

Shaking her head like a
wet dog, she regained her composure.
 
“Yeah, I’m fine.
 
I must not have
eaten enough before my run.”
 

She knew she had said
the wrong thing as soon as she saw the smile on his face.
 
“Well in that case, I better take you to
breakfast.
 
Make sure you eat before you
pass out.”
 
He took her hand and started
to lead her away from the running path toward one of the parking lots.
 
He quickly unlocked the doors of his Porsche
Spyder and slid her into the passenger seat before walking around and sliding
into the driver’s seat.
 
He managed to do
all of this before she could even speak one word of protest.
 

As he pulled into
traffic, she realized she had driven herself to the park.
 
“Wait my car.”
 

Without taking his eyes
of the road, he shook his head in response.
 
“You need to eat; you almost passed out back there.
 
It’s not safe for you to drive.
 
We will come back for it or one of the guys
can come grab it for you later.”
 

Not wanting to argue,
because frankly he was right, she turned her attention to look out the
window.
 
They drove in uncomfortable
silence to the restaurant.
 
Neither of
them seemed to know what to say to the other.
 

~*~*~*~

Alex looked at Izzy
sitting across the table from him with concern.
 
She looked tired and distressed as she picked at the eggs on her
plate.
 
Instead of eating her food, she
was simply pushing it around her plate, leaning her head on her left hand.
 
Looking like a child forced to eat
liver.
 
“Something wrong with your food?”
 
Alex asks between bites.
 

Not saying a word she
simply shook her head.
 
At a loss for
what to say or ask her to get a response he nodded and concentrated on his own
food.
 
Quickly he devoured the large
skillet of eggs, sausage, and potatoes.
 
Pushing
it away from him, he crossed his arms, resting them on the table.
 
Leaning forward a little, he spoke softly but
with a hint of authority that he knew would provoke some kind of reaction from
her. “Since you have no plans to eat that meal, I assume you are ready to talk
about your texts to me last night.
 
You
know the one where you
tried
to end
this between us.”
 

Sighing, she finally
looked him in the eyes.
 
With her head
still resting in her hand, and her fork dangling over her plate she spoke.
 
“First of all, I didn’t
try
to end this thing. I
did
end our relationship or whatever you want to call what we were doing. Secondly,
we agreed that we would end this when we reached a point of friendship or after
a month.
 
We have passed the month, and
we have been less hostile towards each other.
 
Some may even call us friends on some level.
 
So goal met, time to move on.”
 
She immediately dropped her gaze back to her
plate which told him she didn’t believe her own words.
 
Her little speech also lacked all of the fire
he had come to expect from her.
 
Something was off about her today and he was determined to find out what
it was.
 

Staring at her, he
waited until she resumed eye contact before he spoke.
 
“I think I missed the part of the evening
where the light bulb to the idea to dump me came on, and the reason for the
action.
 
We were having fun last night,
we joked in the car on the way to meet everyone.
 
You kicked my ass at pool, which always puts
you in a good mood.
 
And then we got in
the car and you clammed up.
 
Put distance
the size of the Grand Canyon between us.
 
Finally, I get a text, a text not a call, that you were ending
things.
 
I think I deserve a better
explanation then that.”
 

“No magical light bulb
went on Alex.
 
I figured we were supposed
to end this a while ago, so we should just pull the trigger and end this thing.
See no big conspiracy, just practical. We can each go back to our lives as
scheduled.”
 
She was looking anywhere in
the diner except his face.
 

Izzy was a terrible
liar.
 
She could never pull off a small lie,
let alone the whopper of a lie she was trying to pull off on him now.
 
“So it was simply time to move on?”
 
Alex pushed his plate to the side of the
table and leaned in closer to Izzy.
 
Invading her space was all part of his plan.
 
He had quickly learned that the closer he was
to her the more her barriers came down.
 

Izzy must have also
have realized how quickly her barriers came down when they were close together,
because she immediately leaned as far back into the bench seat as she could
without actually becoming one with the bench.
 
“Exactly, time to move on.
 
I am
sure you are itching for a change of…menu.”
 
The sentence came out in a rush of exacerbation, except the last word,
the last word was spit out with such animosity, he sat back a little from her.
 
  

Everything clicked for
Alex at that moment, she was scared he was going to leave her.
 
Her text had been a preemptive strike.
 
"Ah, you think I'm getting bored, with
being with only you."

"I am sure you
have a line of beauties waiting for their turn with the Alexander Porter."
Izzy's voice was becoming more and more snarky.
 

Ignoring the tone of
her voice and the clear 'fuck off' body language, Alex stood from his seat, her
eyes went wide as he sat down scooting her over.
 
Facing her he took her hand in his.
 
"Ok I don't know who said what last
night that got your feathers all in a tuff but there no line of girls waiting
for their turn with me.
 
Even if there
was a line somewhere, I wouldn't even notice them.
 
If I didn't want to be with you, I would tell
you.
 
I would have ended this thing when
we should have if I was bored.
 
Izzy, I
know we aren't in a relationship or anything but we can at least be honest with
each other.
 
I promise to tell you way
before I ever get bored."
 
He added
the last part with a small laugh.
 

“Ok, you’re not
bored…yet.
 
But you will be and I would
rather end this while we are good.
 
I
really do want us to be friends.”
 
She
said sadly.
 
“Plus we are holding each
other back from having something real with someone else.
 
You may not want to get married or have kids
but someday I do! And the longer we mess around, the longer I spend not dating
for real.
 
Not planning for my future.”