He laughed. "I don't have any problems."
"You're a thirty-six-year-old bachelor. Society would beg to differ." We started walking again, our hands clasped. "At least tell me about the triplet thing. I want to hear more about that."
"We grew up together, as you know, and we did everything together. We really did have our own tiny world—but then we finished high school and split up. It was a huge shock to the system. For the first time ever, I wasn't within an arm's reach of Ash and Magnolia."
"That must've been tough."
"It was weird," he replied. "It made me realize how much I prefer being alone and having things that belong only to me. They were still my best friends and I'd spend more time with them than anyone else, but not sharing everything with my siblings turned out to be very good for me. I don't mean that in a secretive way. It's like I learned to hear myself think for the first time and I couldn't go back to the way things used to be. Also, I think that split was good for them too. Ash stopped trying to herd us like cats, Magnolia stopped inventing things for us to do. We found things that interested us separately instead of everything being collaborative."
Out of absolutely nowhere, I said, "I don't have any siblings. A lot of cousins, but I wouldn't call any of them friends."
"Why not?"
"Lots of reasons." I didn't want to add to that. "You're all about solitude but you still dragged yourself next door and introduced yourself the minute I pulled into the driveway. Explain that."
"We've been over this."
"The attempted burglary, yes, but why did you keep inviting yourself over to the hot-mess house?"
"First of all, you invited yourself tomyhouse after we met," he said. "But after that, I knew I'd be a suspect if you turned up dead. I had to keep tabs on you unless I wanted to be hauled in for questioning."
"Seriously," I chided.
"Seriously?" He scratched the back of his neck. "I couldn't sleep. Knowing you were all alone over there."
"But you like being alone. It's your thing."
He jerked his chin up as a deer, about twenty feet ahead, crossed our path. "This was different."
Since I couldn't cope with any more not-hating sentiments but I still wanted to press this bruise, I said, "Okay, you like being alone. How far does that reach? Have you sworn off relationships too?"
"It's been a couple of years since I've thought much about relationships. The casual thing works well enough for me."
"What happened a couple of years ago?"
"Nothing," he replied with too much conviction to ignore.
"Something."
He blew out an irritable breath. "I don't usually talk about this."
"I don't usually walk through the woods and I never wear pants and sneakers. Do you understand that? I'm a dress girl but I'm wearing leggings and ugly flat shoes because you told me to, and that requires you to return the favor by telling me all your gross, mushy secrets."
"I don't have gross or mushy secrets," he replied with a laugh.
"Then tell me about the thing you don't usually talk about."
Linden shot me a sidelong glance. "You talkso much. Do you know that? Like, nonstop."
"I do know that. Along with being exceptionally distracting when I want to be, I can talk the proverbial dog off the meat wagon. I can talk to walls and get them to respond to me. It's one of my many gifts and talents."
"Am I the dog or the wall?"
"Neither," I replied. "But you are the person who has heard allmygross, mushy secrets."
"Fair enough," he grumbled. "When I was in my twenties, there was someone. We were close through college and shared the same circle of friends so we were always hanging out once we were out of school too. Camping trips, snowboarding trips, beach trips. Always in the same group. I had feelings for him, some big feelings. Bigger than I'd had before then, and I'd dated more than my share of people during college."
I smothered a laugh at his bashful grin.
