She was gorgeous, sure, but I knew with the way she had no qualms going head-to-head with her uber masculine, openly dominant hot guy, that was why she’d won Luke’s heart.
I’d learned real men didn’t want a woman who they could walk all over, nor a woman who would roll over for them.
They wanted women who knew their own mind, would fight their own corner, and would call their men on their shit.
Shades of what Noah found in Jinx, for sure.
During our visit, I took pages and pages of mental notes about this.
Aunt Josie, on the other hand, was so prissily feminine, if she showed the next morning in a hoop skirt carrying a parasol, I wouldn’t blink.
Case in point, the perfectly creased slacks she was wearing with low heeled, smudge-free pumps along with a fussy blouse, her pretty hair in an understated updo and a string of pearls around her neck.
She looked like she was attending church on Easter, not like she was at a cazj restaurant eating a tostada.
The idea of her birthing a man like Luke was hilarious.
The idea that her husband had been a colossal dick was not.
So I focused on the hilarious part.
It was the day before eat-until-you-pass-out day, and we were at a Mexican restaurant where I was engaged in eating until I would almost pass out, when I heard Gabe grunt.
In our time together, I’d learned he was a man who grunted, for a variety of reasons (most of them delicious).
But this was a grunt the likes I’d never heard.
I looked to him.
Then I looked to where his eyes were aimed.
Primarily at a really pretty brunette who was standing just inside the entry at the hostess stand.
I knew by the way her gaze was pinging between me and Gabe (because, yes, we were sitting very close, and another yes, he had his arm slung along the back of my chair), and the way her hurt face morphed to incredulous, and incredulous morphed to bitchy, all of this in a matter of seconds, that she was Ariana.
“Oh shit,” Mike mumbled.
Yep.
Ariana.
Ariana started in our direction.
“Oh no, she is not,” Shelby spat.
Gabe stood.
Mike clamped down on Shelby.
I debated whether or not I wanted to break a nail in a catfight the day before Thanksgiving.
Gabe moved to intercept her.
When he did, she morphed her face again to give him a come-hither look and added resting her hand on his chest.
“Oh no, she did not,” I bit off, preparing to slide from my chair.
But then Ariana’s face changed to shock, and her eyes narrowed. I knew she was screwing up to be ugly, but Gabe didn’t give her the shot.
