“Why didn’t men look like that when I was dating?” an older lady mutters as her date sweeps her past us.
Fletcher’s grin turns back into a smirk.
“I cannot even imagine how you live with your own ego,” I murmur as I let him pull me closer again, still smiling.
“I used to stare at my ’stache anytime I got too full of myself. Now there’s nothing between me being hot and me knowing I’m hot.”
This might be the best date I’ve ever had.
Low expectations. Zero pressure. And I get a glimpse of Miller and Stefanie, and yeah.
It’s not so much that I’m taking joy in their discomfort as it is that they wouldn’t be uncomfortable at all if they hadn’t broken my heart and put me on a path to walking away from most of my best friends.
And I still don’t think either of them honestly wish the best for me.
How hard is it to want someone who was once important in your life to be happy, even if you don’t want to be the one to make them happy anymore?
“Okay,” I say to Fletcher. “One kiss.”
“We should play it by tongue. Ear. By ear.”
I roll my eyes.
He grins at me.
Fletcher being broody and possessive and growly? Hot. Fletcher bound and determined to single-handedly increase the visibility of rugby in the States? Admirable. Fletcher full of mischief with that chiseled, scruffy face split in the ultimateI’m so much troublesmile?
It’s like finding the hidden door to let you inside the secret garden in the middle of a foreboding old building where every other hallway will take you to a dungeon with a cranky old troll.
He has a playful side, and he trusts me enough to share it with me.
Or else he’s a hornball and is only in this for the kiss.
But so what if he is?
I’m leaving in two weeks.
And my brother has made sure I haven’t hadanyfun of my own since Miller and Stefanie split my world apart.
Silas has good intentions.Devastatedbarely touches where I was two years ago. Add in a splash ofcompletely alone, somelost, a healthy dose ofloss of confidenceand massive distrust, and that’s closer.
He doesn’t want me to hurt like that again.
But it was important for me to get out and date again to prove to myself that one man being a total and complete bastard doesn’t mean that my life has to stop.
Even if I haven’t had the courage to find new friends my own age. And even if I haven’t voluntarily looked at a dating app in a few months now either.
All under the excuse ofI’m leaving soon.
“We start with one,” I say, matching Fletcher’s grin because it’seasy. “And if neither of us is appalled and we’re not causing a scene, we can try two. But three is the limit.”
“Why?”
“More than three, and you upstage the happy couple. It’s a wedding rule.”
“You made that up.”
“It feels legitimate. Nobody wants to watch someone else making out at their own wedding.”
