“I feel bad for the opposing team and the weight machines. We ought to incorporate a Hulkoutinto your daily workout.” I mean it as a joke. Sort of.
He grunts. My phone beeps again.
“I’m sorry for cutting your hair and beard, though. It was a bit of a shame to see it go.”
The corner of his mouth twitches.
I liked the wild, untamed aspects of him, yet I haven’t fully appreciated the way he looks cleaned up. His trim hair reveals the masculine planes of his face and the cut of his jaw is visible through the shorter beard. Overall, he still has an intimidating look about him, but I didn’t truly feel in danger at the salon.
More like, concerned for him. Even though he’s huge, whatever he’s dealing with is bigger.
I open my suitcase and lackadaisically go through the contents to find something to wear.
As far as ever feeling secure with a guy, my high school boyfriends don’t count, since we did little more than go on a few dates, to dances, and hang out, er, and make out. Todd was a mistake that my father forced upon me.
Grey, on the other hand, is entirely new territory. Some people say marriage is just a piece of paper, but it means more than that to me, despite the unusual circumstances with the insurance. And despite our rules, neither one of us could resist talking about it, acknowledging this connection.
I wanted an easy way out and to wipe our hands of each other, but it’s like we were dragged back together.
Something about his wildness attracts me even, though my better sensibilities should sound warning bells. Instead, a sense of belonging pushes away the doubt and fear I’ve so desperately wanted to shake for months. It has nothing to do with Grey and everything to do with Todd, who repeatedly texts. I put the phone on silent.
“Why do you think it was a shame to see it go?” Grey rubs his fingers along his jaw.
Hope lightens his tone, like that mess of hair meant something, but that can’t be right.
“Sometimes the way we look impacts the way we feel.” My breasts had been part of me, part of my identity. I was shocked at the effect losing them had on me. Though the Wise Warrior Women helped me through it.
“Is that so? Then explain this.” Grey tugs on one of Heidi’s hand-me-down garments that I hold up.
“It’s a babydoll dress that my best friend’s grandmother made at the height of early twenty-teens fashion—the time period, not the age, though she and I were teenagers.”
Grey’s eyes float up my body. My skin, already warm, melts like chocolate chip cookies in the oven.
“My dad had a box of these in the garage to wipe up greasy messes.”
“They’re not rags. They’re handkerchiefs. Heidi, Jimmy’s sister, and I collected them and thought this was the coolest style. We’d take turns wearing it. Lucky me, it still fits.”
“I guess I was too old for that fad.”
“What’s a decade?”
“Ten years.”
I swat him. “I know that. But when you reach a certain point, does age matter?”
“Depends—”
“On the people,” I finish.
“You knew how old I was when you?—”
“Rules—” I remind us both.
“Right. The Club rules.”
A series of bad decisions floats into my mind. “All the guys I dated to tick my father off, years later, Heidi convinced me to look each of them up on social media. Status update and all that. They were all around my age and it didn’t look like they went anywhere with their lives. Maybe I’d like someone a little older.”
“A guy who isn’t stuck in neutral.”
