He chuckled under his breath. She glanced sideways at him at the same time as he twisted to look at her, his eyebrows pulling heavy over his eyes.
“What?”
“You really are secretly badass. You’re all southern charm on the outside, but you’re a fighter.”
She blushed. Delicately, she hoped, but she was on her third drink. It was entirely possible that she should cut herself off before she said something foolish. She cleared her throat and tried to shift the subject a bit. “Maybe? I learned that from Hope. She’s…well, you know. She doesn’t take any shit. She doesn’t wallow. We met like…three weeks after I’d broken up with Track. And I was still stunned. Didn’t know how it would affect my career. Couldn’t see a future without him, even though I’d been the one to end it. I was afraid. I thought I was heartbroken. I was so innocent. But Hope is way more cynical than me. I’m the romantic. She’s the realist. And she said, quite rightly, that I was really mourning the loss of a dream, not the actual man. Because—well, obviously not actually the man. So she took one look at me and said, ‘let’s get you the fuck over him.’”
Dean barked a laugh, and she joined him.
“Right? Can you even imagine her saying that?”
“Actually, yes. I just couldn’t imagine you repeating it.”
She gave him a ladylike mini curtsey before continuing. “So we did all the things that women do after a break up. Ice cream. Late night wine chatter about how small his…hands are. Extra gym visits. Ritual burning of his belongings.”
Dean was nodding along, amused at her rant, until the last one. He blinked at her. “That’s not a real thing.”
“He’s never been able to find his favourite tour t-shirt for a reason.” She made a poof gesture with her hand, her fingers splaying wide. “Ashes on the wind.”
“You really burned his shit? I’m pretty sure nobody has burned any of my belongings.”
She had some thoughts as to why that might be, but they were best kept in her head. She just gave a noncommittal shrug in response.
“What?”
“Oh, no. Nothing.”
He laughed. “Sure.”
“You tell me, then. What?”
“It’s just that I’m friends with most of my exes.”
Ha. Likely story. She tried not to roll her eyes.
“You don’t believe me?”
Clearly she’d failed. She took another drink. “Sure.”
“What?”
“Well, if you’re still friends with them…maybe they were more friends with benefits than girlfriends. I mean, it’s hard to still be friends with someone that you loved once they stop loving you.”
He hesitated long enough for her to realize she’d just made a big assumption.
“They weren’t that serious?”
He shrugged. “Not really.”
She was hardly one to judge. Her only really serious relationship had been with someone that maybe she hadn’t wanted to spend a lot of time naked with. She won the prize for messed-up, that was for sure. “Ignore me, then.”
“But you’re probably right. On the other hand, I’m not ashes on the wind anywhere, so there’s that.”
“Good point. To not getting entangled in anything messy.” She held up her already empty glass. “Oops. Need another drink.”
She pushed off the couch before he could offer to get it for her, or suggest she’d had enough.
She suddenly wanted Dean to watch her walk across the room the way she’d just ate him up with her eyes. She’d changed out of her performance clothes, but put on a very similar outfit—a dark red silky blouse instead of her t-shirt, but another pair of her four-hundred-dollar jeans that made her ass look fantastic.
