I sigh. “Yeah … that about sums it up.”

“So, Willow, the good friend in me would wait for Kirby to fill you in on what you’ve missed while you slept off your hangover, but you do know how I love a good juicy story full of dramatic flair.”

Sitting up, I swing my legs out from under the covers and shiver with the chill in my bedroom. “What are you going on about, Eddie? I swear you have the worst ADD.”

“No, no. It’s all related and flows with the topic at hand. And that hand is pointing straight toward Kane Masters.”

“There is no way I’m awake enough to deal with this. Let me shower off this hangover and you can come over and gossip until your head falls off.”

I don’t give him a chance to continue. I quickly pull the phone from my ear and press the red circle to disconnect the call while his deep voice rumbles through the earpiece. I smile, despite the unease settling in my gut, and make my way to shower and wake up. Knowing Eddie, he’ll be walking through my door before I’ve had a chance to rinse out my shampoo.

Shockingly, I was able to rinse my shampoo and conditioner before I heard my bathroom door open and Eddie’s muffled greeting over the shower spray.

“Do you even care that I’m in here naked right now?” I ask, bringing my body wash-lathered loofah up my left arm and around my shoulder. “I mean most friends would give someone the privacy they deserve when they’re bathing.”

I hear a grunted laugh and the sounds of him rummaging around in my cabinets.

“What are you looking for?”

The curtain jerks and I squeal when his head pokes into the steamy confines of my solitude. His eyes light with mirth when I hastily cover my breasts with one arm and my crotch with the loofah.

“Relax, Will! It’s not as if you’re working with the right stuff to stir little Eddie from his nap. Where’s that hemorrhoid cream you had from that one time you—” I cut him off by picking up the closest thing I could find—my shampoo bottle—and throw it at his head. He squeals, like a girl, and jumps back. “What the hell was that for?”

“You know damn well I’ve never had hemorrhoids, Edward!”

He laughs and sticks his head back into the stall.

“Nice tits, Will.” He smirks. “If I didn’t love a good dick so much, you might be able to convince me to give a woman a run.”

“Get. Out!” I scream.

“Right, well, since you asked nicely, I will. But only because I don’t want it to go to your head that I’m so impressed by your girls. First, where’s that cream?”

“You’re such a jerk. It’s in the bottom of the facial mask basket in the right side of the cabinet directly under the sink. Now, go!”

I make quick work of rinsing off and wrapping a towel around my body. Eddie isn’t one for personal boundaries so it wouldn’t surprise me if he barged back in.

Throwing on some sweatpants and an old college sweater, I grab my brush and pull it through my long tresses as I make my way into my living room slash kitchen slash dining room.

Stopping dead in my tracks, I openly gape at Eddie. “What in the world are you doing?”

He doesn’t look at me, his focus directed at my toaster pulled to the edge of the bar that separates my kitchen area from the rest of the room, while he coats the skin under his eyes with none other than hemorrhoid cream.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m fixing the luggage I’ve been carrying around under my eyes. It’s not easy being this hot, Willow.”

I laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure it isn’t. Care to explain why you’re using up all my cream? I’m going to take it out on you when my period acne hits and all of that powerful stuff is gone.”

“Pfft.” He grunts and continues to dab more and more cream under his eyes.

“I bet you would go blind if you slipped and got that in your eye.”

“Everyone does it, Willow. You act like I’m the only person who uses a little ass cream on my face.” He stops what he’s doing when he realized what he said, a slight frown between his brows. “Don’t—”

“Don’t what? Point out the fact you’re probably used to butt cream in other places?”

“Don’t be disgusting, Willow,” he complains with a slight blush, which only causes me to laugh harder. “Fine. I was going to wait until I finished.” He pauses to recap the cream then wipes his finger on the towel next to his makeshift mirror and turns from the toaster to focus on me. “Let’s finish talking about Kane Masters.”

Well, that’s sobering.

“Word has it that things got heated after you lost your marbles yesterday, marbles I will stress you were justified in spilling, but that wasn’t even the good part. I heard from Mary who heard it from Amanda who heard it from Stephanie that Kane gave both Dominic and Ivy one hell of a verbal slap before storming out of the office. Not only that, but Kirby had to stuff her resignation under his door this morning seeing as he refused to open it once. She said there was a big, ugly piece of plywood blocking that hole you so gracefully created too. I bet he loves that.”

“What?” I gasp.

“Yup. And it gets better.”

“I’m not sure it ever started getting better, Eddie. God, how humiliating.”

“Whatever, Will! You had the hottest man alive—aside from yours truly, obviously—taking your back yesterday. How is that not a good thing?”

“Eddie …”

“Don’t Eddie me. I let it go when you got all red faced the first time you crossed paths with him. After you finally told me the whole story, that is. I didn’t point out the fact he was clearly trying to flirt, but you were too blind to see it. I kept my mouth shut. But I won’t let this go. He stuck up for you to a man who most wouldn’t dream of crossing. You know what that means?”

I shake my head. Not in affirmation of his comments, but because I’m not sure I want him to continue talking. The fear of knowing where he’s going with this is overtaking my false calm.

“Kane Masters was staking a claim. On you. Willow, you might have been able to brush off the first meeting with him, but he obviously wasn’t. You don’t act like a big bad white knight over someone you know nothing about unless you plan to make it a point to learn more.”

I continue to shake my head, this time in denial. “Don’t be ridiculous, Eddie. He was just being a gentleman in the unfortunate situation in which he found himself.”

“You’re wrong, again. What do you think the tabloids would do with the story of him all but throwing a punch at Dominic Logan? No way he would risk that, not to be a gentleman about one fucked-up situation. No, if that is the case, he would have made his gentlemanly move silently to keep that risk down.”

“You’re being absurd. He knows nothing about me. There isn’t some grand serendipitous force in place here, Eddie. End of story.”

His eyes light up, highlighted by the white cream under his tawny eyes. “That, sweetheart, is where you’re dead wrong. But the rest can wait for Kirby to get here. She’s on the way.”

“What? Why isn’t she at work?”

He looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “Did you miss the whole ‘Kirby pushed her resignation under Dominic’s door’ part of my story?”

“What?”

“Good Lord, did you lose your brain in that bottle of Jack last night?”

“Why would she quit?” I implore.

He opens his mouth, but closes it when my front door opens and Kirby walks in. She’s left her blond hair pulled back into a sloppy bun, and her face is free of makeup. She enters the living room area and pulls her sweater over her head, leaving her in form-fitting yoga pants and a tank top.

“I swear, it’s getting cooler than normal out there for October.” She plops down on the couch and looks over at Eddie. “Hemorrhoid cream bag treatment?” she questions him.