“He was gaslighting you,” Tank said angrily.
McKenna touched her nose, indicating he’d gotten it in one. “Thing is, I kept buying his answers. I wanted them to be true because I thought he was the one,” she said. “I figured we’d live together for a couple years, get engaged, then married, then have kids. The whole shebang.”
“That’s what you want?”
She nodded. “More than anything.”
Three months ago, Tank would have scoffed at anyone in their twenties wanting to tie themselves to one person for the rest of their lives. The twenties were for sowing wild oats, living life to the fullest. Marriage and kids were what you did when you got too old to have fun.
Now, though, the idea of McKenna wearing his wedding ring, her stomach round with their baby was…
Tank froze, his brain locked on that image.
And it locked hard.
He didn’t even try to dismiss it or call himself an idiot or anything, because now that he’d seen it…
He wanted it.
Her.
Them.
“Finally, a colleague at work, an older woman I respected, pulled me aside and said it was time to open my eyes. Apparently, everyone at the company knew he was having an affair with Lisa. The woman said I was too good of a person to let a man cheat on me. It was hard to hear, but I was grateful to her for saying it. I confronted Eddie. He accused me of being jealous. Said he couldn’t be with someone who was always so suspicious, and we broke things off.”
“So he continued to deny it. What an asshole,” Tank grumbled. “Good riddance.”
McKenna nodded in agreement. “He couldn’t deny it for long, because within six months, he was engaged to Lisa. I’d started looking for a new job a couple months after we split, but I wasn’t having much luck finding one that paid as well. I had to cover my rent and living expenses. In the end, I stopped looking in Columbus. I decided I needed to completely clean the slate—and not just at work but a total overhaul. I applied for the job with the Stingrays, got it, and moved to Baltimore.”
“So it’s a happy ending.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I love it here. Which is why I won’t do anything that’ll risk what I’ve found—a great job, new friends, cool townhouse with sweet neighbors.”
McKenna hadn’t just thrown a roadblock in his path. She’d erected an entire fortress.
Awesome.
She tucked her legs under herself once more, and he could see she was cold. He used that observation to his advantage, sliding closer to her.
“You look like your mom,” he observed, nodding toward the photos on the shelves, changing the subject to something less painful—for her and himself.
McKenna glanced over. “She calls me her mini-me. I’ve seen pictures of her when she was my age and it’s kind of uncanny. How about you? You take after your mom or your dad?”
“Looks-wise? I’m actually a pretty good blend. Got my dad’s hair color and complexion, my mom’s eyes and nose—thank God.”
McKenna laughed. “And personality-wise?”
Tank shrugged. In a lot of ways, he took after his dad—they were both competitive and ambitious, and they both possessed more than their fair share of arrogance—but it didn’t bring Tank much joy to admit that. He and his dad had been estranged ever since his mom—who had been the glue—passed away. “Another blend,” he said, hedging. “Got my dad’s drive to succeed, my mom’s sense of humor. How about you?”
“I am nothing like my mother. She always joked that if not for our identical looks, she would have taken me back to the hospital years ago, certain they’d sent her home with the wrong baby.”
Tank shifted slightly on the couch, closing the distance between them even more. He felt a bit ridiculous sitting in a jersey and boxers. Or at least, he did until McKenna’s gaze lowered, taking in his muscular legs. Resting his arm along the back of the couch, he brushed his fingers along the side of her neck, enjoying the way she shivered.
He half expected her to call him out for his intimate touch, so he was pleasantly surprised when she didn’t. Instead, she did one better, shifting toward him another inch or two, so that her knee rested against his thigh.
“Are you cold?” she asked, gesturing toward the fleece blanket hanging on the couch. “The windows in the townhouse are as old as the place is, so it tends to be drafty in here, no matter what time of year.”
Tank didn’t answer but reached around her, grabbing the blanket and flipping it open, then covering both of their laps. “We can share heat this way.”
