Wishful Thinking Read online

  “I’ll go barefoot and we can just go through the drive through,” Phil told him. “Meet you in front of the building, okay?”

  “Sure. Bye.” Josh hung up and she ran to get changed. Shimmying out of her evening dress and into a pair of jean shorts and a T-shirt without smearing her polish was a trick but Phil still managed to be waiting on the sidewalk when he arrived. The cement was still warm from the summer sun and she could feel it baking up through the soles of her feet when she hopped into his little hybrid.

  “Looking good, Swann.” He smiled at her as she buckled her seat belt. Josh Bowman was ridiculously tall with broad shoulders to match and shaggy thick brown hair that always looked in need of a haircut. He had big brown eyes and a charmingly lopsided grin with one crooked tooth right in front—not the classical features like Davis Miles, the hottest guy at her office, or sandy blond hair and piercing blue eyes like Christian, but there was something about his mismatched features that just seemed to work. Which was, doubtless, what had prompted Rory to call him “hot” after seeing his picture. Of course, Phil never thought of him as anything but a friend, but the open, easy way he talked and his warm laughter had drawn her to him from the start.

  “In this?” Phil looked down at her plain blue T-shirt and shorts. “I’m hardly dressed for the opera at the moment.”

  “No, your hair. He gestured at her. “I almost never get to see you with your hair down.”

  “Oh.” Phil put a hand to her long blond hair self-consciously but Josh was already talking about something else.

  “So let me see the new sexy red toenails,” he demanded as he pulled out of her apartment parking lot.

  “Josh…” Phil laughed at him.

  “No, seriously, let me see them.” He patted the dash. “Put ‘em up here.”

  Christian would have died if she’d dared to put her bare feet on the dashboard of his Lexus but Josh was easygoing enough that Phil didn’t hesitate.

  “There, happy?” she asked, propping her bare feet on the dashboard and wiggling her toes at him.

  “More than happy. What hot little piggies.” Josh made a lustful face at her toes and pretended to swerve as he leaned forward to look. “And tomorrow at work I’m the only one who’ll know what’s under those sensible black shoes of yours.”

  Phil giggled. “Didn’t know you had such a foot fetish, Bowman.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m big into foot porn,” he said with a straight face. “And I have all these websites book marked, you know, like Kiss My Foot and Toe Bondage.”

  “And The Foot Forum,” she said, getting into the game.

  He nodded. “Oh, yeah—that’s one of my favorites. And I have a subscription to Penthouse Foot Letters. Except all the letters seem to start, ‘You’re not going to believe this but it’s true—the other night I was working late at the shoe store when this incredibly hot blonde with corns walked in and asked me for a foot massage. The next thing I knew she had chocolate syrup between every toe and whipped cream up to her ankles…’”

  Phil was cracking up by this time. “Eww! Josh, you’re too much. And why would anyone have chocolate syrup and whipped cream at a shoe store?”

  He grinned at her. “I don’t know—maybe the guy was going to make a banana split later. Shoe store employees like ice cream too, you know. Speaking of which, here we are. You want one scoop or two?”

  Phil sat up, surprised that the drive had gone so quickly. Josh was already pulling into the drive through of I Scream, U Scream, ready to place their order.

  “Uh, better just make it one,” she said. “We were at Berns tonight and you know how rich the food is there.”

  “Entertaining more clients?” Josh knew all about the situation with Christian’s job. Phil found him easy to talk to and not as quick to criticize as Cass and Rory usually were.

  “Always.” She sighed as he placed their order. I Scream was unusually quiet and they were able to pull through and get their order in a matter of minutes.

  “You wanna eat it here or take it home?” Josh asked, passing her a plastic spoon and the little paper cup of ultra-premium ice cream.

  Phil thought about sitting alone on the couch at home while Christian worked into the night. “Let’s park,” she decided, digging her spoon into the gooey chocolate lump in her cup. Love Potion Number Nine was basically frozen fudge dotted with tiny little chocolate cups filled with raspberry sauce. It was decadent and sinful but after the night she’d just suffered through, Phil figured she deserved it.

  “You got it.” Josh pulled into an empty space across from the small pink ice cream shop. “You’re sure Christian won’t mind me keeping you out late?”

  “Huh? Oh, no.” Phil shrugged. “Christian’s not the jealous type.” It was true that at first she’d felt a little funny about doing the date-type things with Josh that she was used to do with her fiancé. But Cass and Rory weren’t always available and Christian was busy working all the time lately. Also he genuinely didn’t seem to mind. ‘Go on and have fun, don’t worry about me,’ he always told Phil, so she did. It was easy to have fun with her best friend—Josh could always make her laugh even when she was blue.

  “He’s a little too trusting if you ask me,” Josh said, putting the car into park and digging into his ice cream. “I mean, how does he know I don’t have you out here sucking your sexy toes?”

  “Josh!” Phil nudged him with an elbow and laughed. “He knows he can trust me because you and I are just friends.”

  “Friends with a foot fetish,” Josh reminded her gravely. “For all your fiancé knows I could be licking chocolate sauce off your instep this minute.”

  “Enough already.” Phil gave him a mock glare. “Is the only reason you got me out here to talk dirty?”

  “Dirty?” He leaned over and looked at her feet. “I don’t know, Swann. They look pretty clean to me.” Phil pretended to hit him and he ducked. “All right, all right, I did have ulterior motives. I have something for you—kind of a pre-birthday gift.”

  Phil sat up in the seat, ice cream forgotten. “Josh, you shouldn’t have.”

  “Sure I should.” He smiled easily. “Besides, it’s not any real big thing. I just burned you a CD. Here.” He reached in front of her to open the glove box and Phil couldn’t help noticing the warmth of his muscular arm against her side. He fumbled for a minute and then pulled out a flat green plastic case. “Here it is; I knew I stuck it in there somewhere. For you, my lady.” He handed it to Phil with a flourish and she opened it excitedly. She loved getting little presents and loved Josh for knowing that about her. At least once a month he gave her some little trinket he’d found in a flea market or specialty store that he knew she’d like. It was never anything big—just little, thoughtful gifts that let her know Josh was thinking of her.

  “Oh, the soundtrack from Wicked!” she exclaimed, looking at the CD. He’d even gone to the trouble of making a label for it with the original soundtrack’s logo. “Thank you, Josh. I’ve been wanting this for ages.” Ever since Rory had raved about seeing the touring production of the hit musical for her music appreciation class last semester, Phil had been longing to go herself. There was no point in asking Christian, though. Even if they could afford the tickets, and she was sure they couldn’t, he wouldn’t have been caught dead at a musical.

  “It’s coming to the performing arts center next year, you know,” Josh said, smiling at her delighted reaction.

  Phil sighed. “I know but there’s no way Christian will take me. He doesn’t do musicals.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll go with you if you want when it comes to town.”

  “You wouldn’t mind?” Phil looked at him doubtfully. “I mean, Christian says musicals are for girls and gay guys.”

  “Well I’m neither one of those.” Josh laughed. “But hey, good music is good music. I was listening to it after I downloaded it for you and I kinda liked it.”

  “It would be a lot of fun,” Phil said wistfully. “I can’t