Page 45 of Catch and Release

Willa laid her head on the table and groaned.

She was officially the worst.

Layla had offered to pick her up for their night out. It was a little out of her way, but she said Willa could drive next time. They’d been at the Mexican restaurant gossiping and eating their weight in chips and salsa for a couple of hours.

When she got ready earlier this evening, she gave herself a pep talk. She wasn’t going to think about Shawn, or the way he looked at her like she was something to be consumed, or the sexual tension that she felt when she was within a 100-yard radius of him. Last night, they’d fished together for only 30 minutes before she told him she was tired and went inside to hang out with her vibrator.

But today was a new day. She was going out with girlfriends and since Layla was DD’ing, Willa was ready to get her buzz on.

Which she had.

Thoroughly.

The margarita she ordered was the size of her head, and it was delicious. But now, she thought she must’ve done too good of a job putting Shawn out of her mind. Or attempting to. Because she hadn’t even had the decency to tell him she would be out tonight, and therefore unavailable to fish off her wharf with him like they usually do.

She didn’t even have the decency to leave him a goddamn note.

Willa groaned again.

“Tequila getting to you, babe?” Amanda asked.

Willa sat up and rested her head in her hands.

“Remember that hot neighbor I told you about?” Willa asked.

She nodded.

“Apparently she’s got some weird sexual tension with her sexy neighbor but they refuse to bang it out,” Amanda said to Layla, who looked confused.

“Well,” Willa covered her face with her hands and groaned again. “Fuck.”

“Let it out,” Amanda said. “Want us to order you a shot?”

Willa let out a humorless laugh.

“No,” she said. “I don’t deserve it.”

“And why is that?”

“For the past few weeks, my hot neighbor and I fish off my wharf after the sun goes down. It’s never been, like, a thing we talk about. It just started kind of organically. But I forgot to tell him I had plans tonight and he just texted me worried that I didn’t show up.” Willa eyed her phone. “That means he probably waited on me for an hour!”

Amanda and Layla shared a look, then turned back to Willa.

“So wait, am I missing something?” Layla asked. “Why do y’all refuse to—as Amanda so delicately put it—bang it out?”

“Yes, do tell,” Amanda said before sipping the straw of her margarita.

Willa sighed and took a big gulp of her own marg.

“Because,” she said, swirling her finger around the edge of the ginormous glass. “He doesn’t do casual, and that’s all I’m looking for.”

“Explain.” Amanda commanded.

“After everything with my ex,” she’d already filled them both in on the gory details surrounding her awful breakup with Leo, “I just don’t want anything serious for a while. I really don’t want any sort of relationship with a man, but honestly? I’m dying here. This is the longest I’ve gone without sex since I was a teenager.”

Layla blushed, choked on her drink, and started coughing. Amanda studied Willa steadily.

“And how long has it been?” Amanda said.