The Fling Read Free Page B

giggling some more at Annie’s last choice of words. Oksana requested the night to fit with her morning training schedule. Annie booked the room. And a week later, twenty-four hours after Jeff flew out of LAX, Annie found herself four stories above downtown L.A. in a junior suite of The Hilton Checkers Hotel, the perfect place for their sexual rendezvous. A safe distance from Oksana’s stomping ground of West Hollywood. Miles away from Annie’s home in Venice.
    The night had been flawless, hot, and intoxicating. In the end, all Annie wanted was more time to explore Oksana’s body, more time to drown in her kisses. That should have been the first sign. This whole affair was meant to last one night. One night only, but almost a full day later, Annie couldn’t get Oksana out of her mind. The text messages they’d exchanged throughout the day weren’t making things any easier. She had plenty to distract her, but all those distractions revolved around a certain wedding. A wedding for some reason she was suddenly dreading.
    Annie swallowed hard as the thought and the emotion and the flood of anxiety that rushed over her skin like an eerily cool breeze all met in the pit of her stomach. The mix sent the kung pao chicken surfing in her gut.
    Another glass of wine sounded like a super idea, and then as she poured well to the top of the glass, Annie thought it would be best to play another round of the blame game. With a flick of her thumb, she pulled up their text conversation. For this portion of the tournament, the judges found that Oksana was at fault. Oksana had sent the first text of the day, and even if it had been somewhat of a “see you later-good-bye-ish” text, if Oksana hadn’t sent that stupid thing in the first place, Annie would have never replied with: Not awkward at all. You should have stayed.
    Then Oksana never would have replied with: O rly?
    Annie never would have giggled like a fool as she walked to the hotel shower and she’d never have texted back as she waited for the water to warm up. Rly. The shower is pretty big.
    Maybe next time was the returned text that made Annie freeze, one step away from the sink. There was not going to be a next time, but at that moment, Annie knew a next time was exactly what she wanted. And now a good way to being shitfaced, sitting on her couch surrounded by take-out and bridal magazines, Annie mumbled the same thought that had passed through her head earlier that day.
    Why did she text Oksana back?
    That moment, that text, was the text that should have ended this part of their relationship. Annie should have brought them both back to reality, back to their respective roles as client and trainer, a professional relationship that was due to end in exactly two and a half months. Maybe a full three if Annie kept burying her sorrow and confusion in whole bottles of wine and Chinese food. Not to mention the Ben and Jerry’s she’d been hoarding for her next cheat day.
    She scrolled through the list of electronic bits of forbidden lust. Lust was the right word. Not love. Only pathetic virgins and desperate teen boys fell in love with the person—or in this case, the unearthly angel of beauty and cardiovascular fitness—who’d popped their cherry. Annie was not in love, but she was certainly pathetic. So pathetic she was actually considering texting Oksana again. Why stop now, right?
    Back and forth all day, through payroll, through Annie’s lunch break, the Single Dads scheduling meeting, and immediately after a brief call with her mom. Annie assumed between Oksana’s other training sessions, they couldn’t seem to stop with the texting. Oksana’s nightly dinner with her grandmother and her little sister was the only reason they weren’t swapping messages now.
    Oksana had only mentioned her small family of three a few times before. Like a good trainer, she kept most of their conversations focused on Annie, but that hadn’t stopped Annie from wondering every now and