Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 100275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
It was just a kiss.
“I think you’re mistaking his distrust of me for something else.”
“Hon, I’m not mistaken about anything. If you both are too blind to see it, Lord help us all. This kind of chemical reaction will be explosive.”
I return a nervous laugh and shake it off with an exaggerated eye roll. But for the rest of the evening, I can’t stop noticing Fitz stealing glances at me so often it makes me sweat.
“Thank you so much for coming.” Gary hugs me after the last round.
Fitz watches.
Evette hugs me again too.
Fitz watches.
It’s a little chilly when we emerge from the building into the late-night air glowing from the full moon.
“Brr . . .” I rub my hands together. “Isn’t spring supposed to be here soon?”
“It’s in the fifties, Beach Babe.” He chuckles, opening my door.
I raise an eyebrow. “This feels too special. What’s the catch?” I climb into his truck.
“Catch? To opening a door?”
“You watched me dig my Jeep out of the snow shortly after I moved here. You’re not the guy who opens doors for a lady.”
His lips pull into a lazy, lopsided grin. “I didn’t know you were a lady at the time.”
I open my mouth to respond, but he closes my door and circles around the front of his truck. He starts it and turns on the heat. When he moves to put the truck into gear, I rest my hand on his.
“Let it warm up a bit,” I say because we’re parked at the far end of the lot with no one around us, and when we get home, Will and Maren will know we pulled into the driveway.
He eyes me with a neutral expression for a few seconds before nodding.
I take a gander out the window. “I’m booking my flight before I go to bed. Are you serious about going to Miami with me? Because you don’t have to—”
“I’m serious.”
“Is it”—I slide my hands between my thighs to warm them—“a good idea?”
Fitz draws in a long breath and releases it just as slowly. “Depends on who you ask.”
“I’m asking you.”
“I think . . .” He’s full of sighs, but no two are the same, and I can’t distinguish what each one means. “I think Miami sounds like a great getaway before I jump into a long summer.”
“Have you been to Miami?”
“Of course,” he says.
I’m sure many people in their midthirties have been to Miami or somewhere in Florida. A twenty-five-year-old who has never been on a plane is a much rarer phenomenon.
“Why were you homeschooled?”
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move.
I angle my body toward his. “I was homeschooled because my mom thought raising me without a father would make me more susceptible to the influence of boys in school, which I’m pretty sure was code for teenage pregnancy.” I grin.
Fitz finds a tiny one, too, when he glances over at me. “So you’re still a virgin?”
“Ha ha. Real funny.”
Fitz studies me during a long pause. “My parents homeschooled me for the same reason.”
“I see.” I bite my lip to hide my grin. That’s not why he was homeschooled. He’s so full of shit. But I play along. “Love comes in all forms. I’m sure what seemed extreme caution at the time was not meant to be anything more than love. Just before my mom died of cancer, I began to realize how incredibly different a mother’s love is compared to any other kind of love.” As the words slide past my lips, I feel a pang of guilt. “I wish I would have seen it years ago. My dad died when I was five. She raised me by herself. I have to wonder if his death made her extra protective of me. Like I was all she had left.”
He nods, gaze softening into something unreadable while we stare silently at each other. I wonder if he’s on the verge of sharing more of his past with me.
“I’ve noticed you’ve been rather pouty lately. I predicted it,” he says, not on the verge of sharing anything personal with me. He’s a labyrinth.
I don’t push it. Instead, I roll my eyes because I’ve not been pouty, and he knows it. “I’ve noticed you’ve been sulking lately. I predicted it.”
He grins.
“My friend Melissa will assume something is going on between us if you go with me to Miami.”
“That’s because you confessed you were having sex dreams about me.”
“Stop. No.” I shake my head. “It wasn’t a confession. She was pestering me, so I told her what she wanted to hear to shut her up.”
“Liar.”
I shove his arm. “I’m not lying.”
He laughs.
“Stop laughing.”
“I can’t.” He laughs more.
I unbuckle my seat belt and lean over the console to cover his mouth with my hand. “Enough with the mocking.”
He pulls my hand away, exposing a massive grin on his face that’s mere inches from mine.