6. Taylor

"Falling in love produces the same high as cocaine." ~ Tim Rhodes

Well, this backfired. I told myself as I listened to Kyle, or whatever his name was, tell me what his perfect day would be.

I'd only suggested this activity because I thought I'd shot myself in the foot when I admitted I hated small talk because I did want to get to know him better. However, I didn't think that whatever magic, voodoo, or sorcery these questions held would actually work.

But they were. I was feeling all sorts of intimate. I'd given myself a quick mental checkup, and my diagnosis was clear.

My heart was pounding. My pulse was racing. My palms were sweaty. My hands were trembling. My face was flushed. My stomach was filled with butterflies. I felt like I was floating in a euphoria bubble, sort of like when I tripped on ecstasy during college. And, despite the fact that I'd barely slept in the past few days, I had enough energy to run a marathon.

All of my vitals pointed to one conclusion. I was falling in love.

Physically, I knew exactly what was happening in my body. My system was releasing noradrenaline which explained all of my symptoms. The problem was that it wasn't just all butterflies and euphoria. The other side of the noradrenaline-rush coin was reduced activity in the frontal cortex and diminished judgment.

Basically, I was all hopped up on the love drug and could easily do something really stupid without thinking of the consequences. I always thought about consequences. I had to. All my life, the buck stopped with me. Despite my unplanned pregnancy, I wasn't reckless. My daughter had been conceived with a man I loved, just not a man I was in love with.

But as I sat across from Kyle, I wasn't considering or examining the possible repercussions of what this night could bring. All I was thinking about was how badly I wanted to examine his body, and for him to examine mine.

I took another drink of my soda and told myself that this was just a blip. It was an anomaly. It was an aberration. This was not real. What I felt for this man was not real.

Tonight was just a night I would look back on and remember the time I fell in love with Kyle Chandler and spent a magical night with him talking at a Best Western hotel during a storm.

"Ana?"

Kyle's voice snapped me out of my internal freakout. "What?"

He grinned. "Am I boring you?"

Fuck. Now, Kyle thought I thought he was boring.

"No. No, sorry, I'm just…tired. I haven't slept a lot in the past couple of days."

"Okay." He stood and started clearing off the table. "I'll clean this up, and you can go ahead and take the bed."

"Take the bed?" I repeated.

"I'll sleep on the floor."

"You are not sleeping on the floor. We can share the bed," I insisted and instantly blamed my frontal cortex, which was responsible for both impulse control and social appropriateness. Those were the suckers responsible for my offering to let him sleep with me.

"It's fine. Honestly. With my job, I've slept on a lot worse."

"What do you—" I stopped myself from finishing the question. As badly as I wanted to know the answer and basically know everything about this man, I'd made a rule, and I would be damned if I didn't follow it.

Plus, it was probably best to keep this as impersonal as possible.

Good luck with that, my inner Kenna voice stated flatly.

Kyle grinned. It was a lopsided grin that I'd seen several times and was becoming my favorite of his many smiles. "You were going to ask me what I do, weren't you?"

"Nope. Ana does not care about what Kyle does," I lied, sort of. Taylor definitely wanted to know what Kyle did, but maybe Ana didn't.

An amused grin curled on his perfect mouth. "She doesn't?"

"Ana loves a mystery." I figured if I was going to be another person for the night, I might as well be someone completely opposite of me. I hated mysteries almost as much as I hated surprises. I wanted to know things in advance. I wanted to have all the facts and information for any situation.

"Does Ana also love speaking in the third person?"

Okay, that one was totally me. It was a habit I'd had since I was a kid. A teacher noticed me speaking under my breath to myself in the third person whenever I had to do something that I was nervous about, like take a test, go out and play at recess, or read in front of the class. She sent me to the school psychologist who told me it was normal for me to do because I was an only child and going through a traumatic time, so I was basically being my own friend. It wasn't something I'd done since I was in elementary school, which was also when I stopped being nervous about things.

"Ana does that sometimes when she gets…nervous," I confessed.

"Do I make you nervous?" he asked.

Lie, Ana!My inner voice shouted.

"Um…" I inhaled through my nose and exhaled out of my mouth. "Yes, you do."

"I thought you didn't get nervous."

"I don't. It appears my nervous system has made an exception for you."

A low, growly sound emanated from his chest. It wasn't loud, but I felt the sound resonate through me, like my body was the surface of the lake, and Kyle had just skipped a rock across it. I needed an emergency exit and quick. If I didn't remove myself from this room, I was going to pounce on him like a starving lioness on prey.

"I need to go to the bathroom. To the shower," I quickly clarified. "I'm going to go take a shower."

Without waiting for his response, I walked past him, grabbed the handle of my suitcase, and rolled it into the bathroom. Once I closed the door, I leaned back against the cold wooden surface.

This situation, this night, this whole thing, was crazy. If this were Kenna, I'd be telling her to run. Or at least take a photo of Kyle's driver's license and send me a copy so I would have something to tell the cops if things went south.

I didn't know the man on the other side of the door at all. I didn't know his name. I didn't know how old he was. I didn't know what he did for a living. In fairness to him, I'd made a rule not to learn those details… but still. I didn't "know" him, but I felt like I knew him. Maybe not his resume, but who he was as a person.

I'd always been good at reading people. It was a gift that had served me well throughout my life. I trusted my intuition. I trusted my gut. I trusted myself. And all of those things inside of me trusted Kyle. Or whatever his name was.

As I leaned against the door, my back ached, and I felt all of my thirty-five years.

Thirty-five.

In some respects, I'd lived a lot. I'd traveled extensively with the Navy. I'd finished medical school and my residency. I had a daughter who was nearly five.

But in other respects, I hadn't lived at all. I'd only ever been in three serious relationships, not including my friendship with Kane, which was wholly platonic aside from the one night we spent together. The first was in high school. I dated Andy from sophomore year to senior year. The second was when I was pre-med. I dated Jamal for two years as an undergrad. The third was a resident when I was in medical school. That relationship lasted four years and ended six years ago.

I'd never had a casual hookup.

I'd never used a dating app.

I'd never had a one-night stand with a stranger.

The reason none of those things had ever appealed to me was because of my sensory issues. But that also meant that I hadn't had sex in a very long time. That was most likely why I'd been ready to jump Kyle's bones a few seconds ago. It was years of pent-up sexual frustration.

I pushed off the door and stared at myself in the mirror. The reflection staring back at me was a woman I didn't see often. It was a woman who was seriously considering doing something wild. Something reckless. Something spontaneous.

"Taylor needs to think," I whispered under my breath, and I did not miss that this was the second time I'd spoken in the third person in five minutes.

If I ever did want to experience the true definition of a one-night stand, the circumstances I currently found myself in were ideal. I couldn't have planned this any better if I'd made a list for it myself.

Anonymous. Check.

Random city. Check.

Ridiculously hot stranger. Check.

Attraction. Triple check.

Trust. Check.

That last one didn't make any sense, considering the facts, but I did. I trusted Kyle completely. Which was something I could only say about a handful of people, all of whom I'd known for several years before they earned that distinction.

I turned the shower on and told myself I didn't have to make any decisions now. Then, I grabbed my toiletry bag and pulled out my razor. I might not know exactly where the night would lead, but I was definitely going to be shaving, and not just my legs.