Passing Through

Part Thirty Four

 Chapter Thirty Four

How did you maintain a platonic relationship with a member of the opposite sex whose bones you wanted to jump so desperately?

For Bo, that was the million dollar question. Knowing that Natasha agreed to spend time with him made him smile, he hit training the morning after their dinner with a smile on his face, and it had been there since.

But since he'd asked her to be his friend, to spend time with him, he was happy. Though he'd had to follow up his request with a promise that there would be no sex. He laughed as he remembered the earnest expression on her face as she'd asked that, and the way he'd reluctantly agreed to it. But if he'd learned nothing else, it was that sex wasn't everything, and he had to rely on his charm, his personality and his chivalry to overwhelm her. Because he wasn't wrong, he was sure that she liked him that she wanted more, just like he did.

There seemed to be more than the fact he would be heading back to the US that was making her hold back, and he was hopeful that they could get back on track with time, he was hoping that she'd open up to him, share things with that. He wanted that.

So he hit the gym hard, hit the ice hard, throwing himself into his life a hundred percent...and kept his distance for a couple of days, even thought it almost killed him, He knew that would be what they both needed, some time to clear their minds. And as his Swedish grandmother used to say, absence makes the heart grow fonder. He was hoping that was true.

Today was Thursday, and he had waited almost three days. It was time to make plans. After the gym session he was calling to the cafe. He needed to talk to her. Stake his claim.

How did you cope with a force like Bo Holding taking over your life?

You threw yourself into work, you worked fourteen hour days, and you pretended that you didn't want a life outside of that job, and that you weren't waiting for the phone call or text from the man who was turning your life upside down without being in it. From the moment she'd left the restaurant, insisting on travelling home alone, Bo had been absent from her life. The occasional barely daily text saying hi in some format was all he gave her, and she was too bloody stubborn to reply to them.

Then she reminded herself that she didn't want this, couldn't want this. So why was she so confused over it?

Steph had arrived the morning after the dinner to see how the talk had gone. But she could shed no light. Natasha knew she wasn't making sense, she'd barely slept, her mind going around in circles, from the conversation they'd had, and the links to her past. In the depths of her dreams, despite the difference in their physical and personal attributes, Bo moulded into Torrie. They became one and the same, and that wasn't a great place to be.

"You wanted this, distance." Natasha nodded at Steph's analogy.

"So why am I so fucked up over it all?"

Steph shrugged, "cos he's hot as fuck and bangs you like you've never had it before?"

Natasha blushed and chuckled in equal measures, "he does have certain talents, but I need more than that."

"You want him to commit to you, but you're not exactly offering him anything back."

That had hurt, but she loved Steph's honesty. "I can't leave this place to follow him on a whim. I can't when I've put everything I have into it, this cafe..it's all I have."