I scoop my phone up off the table. “Ummm—it’s complicated.”
“Seriously, he’s a super hot travel heir, and you’re all acting like texting with him is something you’re ashamed of.”
“He’s…an acquaintance. Truth be told, I don’t know what he is.”
“Wow, you’re over here getting messages from billionaire heirs, and I can’t even get my country bumpkin to commit to an actual date.”
“How’d you meet said bumpkin?”
“We’ve known each other for a while, then one night at Bons…well, things just kind of progressed. I was drunk, and he was supposed to take me home, but I asked if we could lie out and look up at the stars. I totally made moves on him, which he resisted.”
“How’d you finally win him over? Don’t tell me it was with facesitting…”
Irene breaks out into hysterical laughter. “Oh, heavens no. We parted ways, and after five days, he sent me a love poem by text. I had no idea he was so insightful. It was sweet.”
“And then what?”
“We’d see each other occasionally, but never openly. Lori adores him, and he dotes on her. He wants so badly to provide for Lori and me, and I believe him, but he’s so stuck in his ways, and he doesn’t think he’s earned the right to a family yet.”
“The right to a family?”
“Yeah, he feels he has to make something of himself. Anyway, that’s my tragic love life. What about you?”
“There isn’t much to tell.”
She furrows her brow mockingly. “Isn’t much to tell. I just have one of the richest, most eligible bachelors in the world on speed dial.”
“It’s…not as great as you might think. Half the men I date are arrogant. They act like it’s some kind of privilege to date them. No effort into sex, but they expect me to be all over their cocks, like it’s some kind of fine dining experience. The other half worships me to the point where they lose their identity, and everything is about me. What I want. What I like. It’s…suffocating.”
“Girl, we have very different problems.”
We catch up over burgers I shouldn’t be eating and milkshakes I shouldn’t be drinking. Hours fly by as I listen to her DUI cases, how infuriating it is to be forced to represent a domestic abuser, and how much she hates the rise of pumpkin spice.
I too loathe pumpkin spice.
“Well, I need to get the nugget home,” she says as she opens her purse.
“I got this,” I say, grabbing my card.
“I’m disbarred, not destitute. You can get the next one.”
She settles the bill, and we leave, walking three blocks down the road to Janer’s. Lori’s sitting on a chair, chattering incessantly next to Garrett, who is underneath a vehicle working, his shirt a crumpled ball some feet away.
I feel like I’ve traveled to some parallel universe, like in the Avengers movies. If I had never gone away to Hollywood, would I be standing here, looking on at my husband and child? Or is that wishful thinking?
I see a hint of Garrett’s naked abs peeking out from underneath the car. The thought of him shirtless sends my heart racing. There’s something so sexy and primal about him. He’s unkempt, but not the Hollywood kind of disheveled where they mismatch a button and comb their hair to look all messy. Garrett is gruff and has earned the sweat of a hardworking man.
“Something about seeing him here feels so right,” I whisper to Irene.
She looks on forlornly, and I remember what she said about his debt. It pains me that one of the last good men standing has had to suffer from his generosity.
Garrett rolls out from underneath the car, and I swallow, trying my best to look casual and not at all like I’m undressing him with my eyes.
Be cool. Don’t seem overeager. When the time’s right, make him an offer he can’t refuse—or rather—he won’t want to.
But of course, I can’t let myself have any fun, and the rational side of my brain is making a bid for me to act like a mature adult.
The very last thing you need right now is an entanglement. He’s Jake’s friend, Irene’s brother, Prim’s crush—and completely off-limits!
