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  Copyright © 2017 by, Kristen Flowers

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author. Reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews. This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or business establishments, events or locals is coincidental

  By Kristen Flowers

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  Table of Contents

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  -Author’s Note-

  I just wanted to let you know that I included a couple extra books in the back! You’ll find both romance novels ‘Cooked’ and ‘Bad Play’ in the back. ‘“Just” Sex’ should end at around the 40% mark on your reading device.

  I hope you guys love it! I had a lot of fun writing this one!

  -Kristen Flowers

  The smell of coffee filled the air and the scent of freshly made mini-waffles with caramel drizzle, a house specialty, drifted to the small corner table where I sat. My eyes were glued to the man across from me. The chattering sounds of the people gathered in the coffee shop and the grinding of the blenders were all muted out. All I could do was focus on what Charlie said. I was trying my hardest not to freak out in front of everyone in the coffee shop. I was starting to worry I wasn’t going to be able to keep it together.

  Charlie’s face was serious, but I detected zero trace of sadness or empathy on it. If anything, he looked like a man stuck in a humdrum meeting with obnoxious people. He seemed eager to say the little script he had memorized as quickly as possible in order to step back out onto the street with his regained freedom.

  “It’s not like I think we never had some good times together,” he told me in his fake and gentle voice. He used that same obnoxiously irritating voice with his co-workers; which he constantly referred to as his ‘subordinates’. I hated it, but still listened to what he had to say, “Because we did have some good times. You know we wouldn’t still be together if there weren’t good times, Amanda.”

  My chest tightened when he said my name. He had only ever called me ‘Mands’, a nickname I hated at first, but quickly grew to love. Before now, I couldn’t even recall how my name sounded rolling off his tongue. I turned to look away from him, eyes focusing on the steam rising from a freshly brewed cappuccino of a college student at the table beside us. She was a petite young lady with glasses that looked a bit large for her face. She was listening to music and focused on the set of notes laid out on the table in front of her. There was no chance she was eavesdropping on the conversation we were having.

  In truth, it wasn’t much of a conversation given how one-sided it was. It was mostly Charlie trying to break up with me ‘gently’ in his fake voice. He made me feel like one of his ‘subordinates’.

  “It’s just not going to work out between us,” He said as he started wrapping up his ramblings.

  I turned to look at him briefly before the small art print behind his head caught my attention. It was the same print that caught my eye the first time we met, right in the very coffee shop he was now dumping me in. I would have found the circular nature of our relationship interesting, but I was too busy thinking about how much of an asshole he was for ending things, quite out of the blue, right where we had started our relationship. I wondered if he even remembered this was where we met. Probably not.

  “Amanda,” he said a bit more loudly to get my attention.

  My eyes focused back on him and I arched my brow with a shrug of my shoulders. I didn’t hear whatever he had asked, nor did I care. Thinking back on things, Charlie never knew the right things to say and much less when to say them. I thought of all his little digs about my career and how I went about things. I leaned back in my seat, hand curled around the porcelain mug of my now lukewarm coffee.

  I opened my mouth as if to say something, but then realized I didn’t know what to say. Or, maybe, I didn’t have anything to tell him. He was dumping me in a shitty way, but I already knew it was for the best. How could I stay by the side of the person who was doubtful of my every move? How could I possibly stay with a guy like that?

  “I just… I’m not feelin’ it anymore, Amanda. I have, to be honest with you so,” he said with a shrug. He looked at me, mouth crooked, and eyes blank.

  I leaned forward and clutched my mug, “Well, as long as we’re just telling it like it is.” I trailed off and took a long, slow sip of my cold coffee. I never broke eye contact with him. “I’m moving to New York!” I blurted out, even though it was something I hadn’t really considered before. I hated that my voice quivered as I said it. Now he knew how upset I really was. It wasn’t fair. He was being an asshole and I was dodging a bullet, yet a part of me still hurt. All of my relationships seemed to end up like this—me getting dumped.

  “Wow,” he muttered.

  I inched forward in my seat, holding my breath; maybe he was finally going to break. I watched his expression carefully, looking at every inch of his face for even the smallest bit of sadness or shock.

  Nothing.

  Instead, I saw the tiniest smile tug at the corner of his lip. The thought of me leaving this entire part of the country brought joy to him. My stomach did a somersault, sloshing around the lukewarm coffee in my gut and making me feel even more ill.

  “That’s good. That’s really good, actually. You should go out there. It’ll be a fresh start in a whole new place. You know, I think it’s great, you leaving here. Yeah.”

  I nearly knocked my coffee mug off the table as I pulled my hand away to clutch my arm. I dug my nails into the thick material of my coat and swallowed hard. It stung and I hated it. It took every ounce of self-control not to let any hot tears fall from my eyes. He really didn’t seem to care at all that I might leave. If anything, he was urging me to go. Everything he said bounced around my mind like an angry pinball as I tried to make sense of it.

  He was encouraging me to leave because he wanted me out of this city and out of the entire state—basically as far away from him as possible. He probably would have egged me on if I said I wanted to learn the art of sushi making in Japan. I wanted to cry and ask why he was pushing me away like this. But somehow, I mustered enough strength and dignity to stop myself. I fisted my other hand and felt my nails dig into my palm as I shook slightly.

  “Right!” I finally burst out and grabbed my purse in a hurry to storm out of there as fast as I could.

  It wasn’t my proudest moment, by far, but it was the best I could do. I rushed home by foot, pushing past one of my neighbors and crashing into my apartment after slamming the door shut behind me. I threw myself on the couch and sobbed like a teenager getting dumped for the first time. I pounded down on the surface of the couch seat with clenched hands as frustration flooded over me.

  It just wasn’t right for me to feel this upset over being dumped by an asshole who never supported anything important to me. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks when I thought of all the humiliation I had endured every time he quipped about my future acting career. I cried even harder when I thought about the moments he sang loudly and dramatically, poking fun at me wanting to make it on Broadway.

  I wasn’t a naïve little girl who thought she was going to be famous; I knew the odds were low, but that wasn’t a reason to stop from pursuing my dreams. No matter what, the person who should have been the most supportive made me feel shitty about it.

  And he made me feel like that all the time.

  “Why the hell did I bother putting up with his bullshit,” I muttered in sobbing breaths.

  It felt like I h
ad put in so much time and effort for nothing in return. My fingers fumbled with the buttons on my coat before finally throwing it clear across the room, knocking over the standing coat rack by the door. It landed with a thud and nearly knocked over a picture of me during my first play in high school. That only made me angrier when it reminded me of one of my first relationships with Tod. I scoffed at the thought of him. He had broken up with me right before opening night of the play. I barely kept it together on stage, but somehow I had managed.

  I sat up and stared straight forward at my television. Charlie had helped me pick it out.

  “Fuck!” I cried out angrily.

  He was everywhere. Just like the shitty boyfriends before him, all who burned me for absolutely no reason. Charlie had left his mark on me and my things. Surrounding me were all the things we had picked out together or enjoyed using together. I stood up and walked into the kitchen for a glass of water, but then spotted a pink mug with yellow stars and white writing sitting by the sink. I fumed; without thinking, I stomped over to pick it up and threw it against the wall and watched it smash into a thousand pieces.

  “That jackass,” I wheezed.

  It was a mug he bought me exactly one month after we met at the coffee shop. He had bought it from there and said, “I don’t do the whole ‘month-aversaries’ thing or whatever, but I did get you a little something just because.” He handed it to me and snuck in a kiss. That was the first night we had sex. I thought it was magical and romantic, but now I know it was nothing but cheap gifts and empty kisses.

  If he forgot about all that history when he chose to break up with me, he was a self-absorbed ass-wipe. If he remembered it was ‘our’ coffee shop, but he still chose that place to breakup with me, he was an even bigger asshole. Either way, it was a terrible thing to do. He probably only got me that mug as a super sweet and romantic gesture to get into my pants. What a pig.

  “Men are assholes,” I practically shouted into my phone a few minutes later.

  Tina, my best friend, sighed heavily, “What’d Charlie do?”

  “Charles is a fucking asshole, just like the rest of them,” I declared like it was a law of the universe. I was pacing up and down my bedroom, ruffling my hair every so often. “He’s just like all of them! He’s finally shown his true colors, but I’ll tell you what—it’s a good thing he did. That jackass was trying to save face by being gentle or whatever the hell when he broke up with me but…”

  “But?”

  “He broke up with me in the same damn coffee shop we met! Out of the blue! Telling me he just didn’t ‘feel’ it anymore! Who fucking does that, Tee? A pig, that’s who. He got what he wanted out of me for as long as he wanted it and then just ended it. Of course, that selfish prick wouldn’t want to commit to me! He just wanted sex and when he got bored with me or found someone new, who knows, he had no problem cutting me off just like that. Fuck our history, fuck my feelings, and fuck anything cute he ever did. None of it meant anything after all.”

  Tina sighed again, “Maybe that’s not quite–”

  “Oh maybe nothing! Honestly, Tina, if he gave a damn about me he wouldn't have blindsided me, done it in public, and much less done it where we first met! It was because of that stupid fucking coffee shop I even slept with him in the first place! Talk about salting the wound! Does he get off on this kind of stuff? I swear I should’ve known better. He always talked down to me, he always just thought about himself, so why did this take me by surprise?”

  I collapsed on the floor and sobbed. I absolutely detested being so hurt by someone so awful, and I truly despised the fact that it wasn’t even the first time something like this had happened to me. I cried and cried and lost track of time, all the while Tina remained silent on the phone.

  “I hate that you’re so far away,” I finally muttered sometime later.

  “I know,” Tina agreed, “I do too.” There was a pause during which I sniffled before Tina chirped in, “You should just come to New York already! Honestly, Mandy, what are you waiting for? What have you got to lose?”

  The morning light filtered in through the sheer curtains of the posh hotel room. On any other day, I would have cursed myself for forgetting to shut the blackout drapes, but today I was glad I didn’t. I turned to my left to see her wide-awake already, staring at me with her big doe eyes. Last night, in the glow of the hotel’s upscale bar, I had found those eyes pretty charming, but now they just sent a jolt of irritation straight down my spine. I knew exactly what that look meant; I was glad I wouldn’t be around much longer to give her the opportunity to pester the living daylights out of me.

  “Last night was fun,” she said in a coy voice, still raspy from barely waking up.

  I cleared my throat. “Yeah,” I mumbled before sitting up in bed.

  I wondered if starting to pack my things would shoo her out of the place, but at the same time, I thought it might open the door for her to stay until checkout. That was certainly not a risk I was willing to take. I stuck my arms straight up in the air and stretched, only to have my yawn interrupted by the sound of her voice. I failed in suppressing a cringe, but my back was to her so at least she didn’t catch my facial expression. I coughed into my hand and looked over my shoulder at her to reluctantly ask what she had just said.

  “Oh,” she responded lazily as she stretched her arms over her head. Her breasts popped out from under the thin sheet covering her nude body, but now in the early daylight of the morning after, I didn’t much care to look at them. I just wanted her gone. “I said you should call me sometime so we can do this again.” She sat up and looked at me expectantly.

  I sighed and gestured at the hotel room. It was bad enough when my hookups insisted on making something more out of a single night of pleasure, but now she was just being silly. We were in a hotel and I had mentioned I was only in town for business. She already knew I didn’t live in Columbus—and thank god I didn’t. I much preferred the hustle of New York.

  I knew she wasn’t the brightest bulb on the marquee when we met the previous night, but I never thought she was this dense. Then again, I never paid much attention to her mouth other than how sensual her full lips were and how great she worked them later that night. Whatever words came out of her mouth were of little interest to me. I went to sleep even earlier than usual because the sound of her voice was annoying; even when I tried to wash it away with top-shelf scotch. It was even worse now in broad daylight and with nothing to look forward to.

  “I know you don’t live here, silly,” she giggled. It was a sound even more high-pitched than her voice, a tone I swore she adopted because she, for whatever reason, figured men found it sexy. She nudged my arm playfully, “I mean next time you’re here. You should give me a call. I can be your ‘Ohio girl’.” She winked and thrust her bare chest out as if she hadn’t been crystal clear the entire time.

  I smiled politely the way I did to business people I was about to shoot down, “Thanks but it’s not a good idea.”

  She scoffed and stood up, strutting over to gather her clothes with an annoyed shake of her head. I waited for a moment. It was a rare occasion for me not to be called names, insulted, or even pleaded to in this sort of situation. But she was one of the few exceptions; she just stalked into the restroom to get dressed without so much as casting a glance in my direction.

  I shrugged and laid back. I stared at the pristine white ceiling as she got dressed in the restroom. I couldn’t think of anything better to do while I waited for her to finish up and get out so I could start getting ready to leave in peace. I had already done most of my packing, but there were some last-minute things to take care of and I wanted to get a good breakfast in before heading off to the airport. It had been a short trip filled with business meetings and presentations, none of which was unusual for me. Still, there was a world of difference between ending a busy day by going home and ending one by going to a hotel room in a city that was beyond boring. Still, I wanted to enjoy a bit of downtime to
myself before going back to my hectic life in The Big Apple. I wouldn’t even have the rest of the day off when I arrived. The bathroom door opened and I sat straight up, only to find her staring straight at me and my unabashed nakedness.

  “So I guess I’ll be going.” She sounded a bit downtrodden.

  “Look,” I spoke up, “I have to go back to New York. My whole life is there and, honestly, I just don’t do relationships.”

  “I never asked for a relationship,” she spat, shaking her head. She snatched her purse off the desk and stormed out of the room, but not before turning back to glare at me from the door one last time. It was like she wanted to send a message she was above this and I should be ashamed of myself.

  I wasn’t.

  Frankly, I didn’t give a damn. Women like her were a dime a dozen.

  As soon as the door closed behind her, I let out a laugh. My conscience was clear; she knew what this was from the beginning. We met at the bar, flirted, and decided to go upstairs to get off together. It was a one-shot deal and nothing more. Maybe she didn’t ask for an actual relationship, but her suggestion was close enough, and I wasn’t up for that. She was being clingy; just like all women ended up being.