But this is starting to feel likeBrokeback Mountainmore and more every day, except we aren’t gay cowboys.
I just can’t quit him.
My thoughts drift back to the bar last night, and I don’t just mean the mind-blowing sex we had.
No, it was when he saidI’m already a wreck for you.
And dammit if I’m not already a wreck for him too.
I don’t know when it happened exactly. Was it the night we first kissed in the barn? Was it when I saw he kept the cat? Or was it when he sat down at breakfast with my mom, Nonna, and all my aunts and cousins and waded through their parade of questions like it was nothing?
I have no idea. I just know that for the first time since I started planning this wedding, I’m not looking forward to it, because it means this thing between us will end.
And I really don’t want it to.
“Odette?”
“Hmm?” I shake my head. “Yeah, no, sorry. I’m fine. I ... I hear you, I do. Nonna said something similar recently too.”
“Ahh.” She nods. “I take it that’s what led your mother to finally ask Ken out?”
“Yep, that’s the reason why.”
My mother has had a not-so-subtle crush on the baker/widower for years now, and she’s never done anything about it. Not just because Ken has always had a look of sadness in his eyes, but because my mother is just as fearful of the curse as I am.
I guess what Nonna said the other day really got through to her, though.
It got through to me, too, but it doesn’t mean I’m not still scared. I am. I am absolutely terrified of giving in to something real. Something lasting.
Besides, I’m not completely out of the woods yet with my business or this wedding. We still have to get through next week, and then maybe I’ll reevaluate where my love life is at.
“Okay, please tell me my sweet little baby isn’t so spoiled that she has to have a separate bowl for her breakfast, dinner, and water.”
My eyes go to where she points at Beans’s feeding mat.
Shit. I forgot to pick up the extra bowl I had set out for Pork.
I don’t want to lie to her. I’m tired of lying to her. But Noah and I agreed to wait until after the wedding to say anything, if we even have to say anything at all.
“Oh, that’s Pork’s.”
“Pork? As in my brother’s kitten Pork?”
“Yep. I, uh, I watched him the other day for Noah.”
It’s not a complete lie. I did watch him while Noah was in the shower after we’d just gotten done with yet another sex marathon.
But that’s beside the point. He was here, and I watched him. I’m leaving it at that.
“Oh. I didn’t realize you were ‘watching each other’s pets’ kind of close.”
I shrug. “It’s no big deal.”
Crap. I even sound like Noah now.
Izzy purses her lips but doesn’t push the issue any further, and I’m thankful for that because I don’t know how much longer I can hold this secret inside.
If I had a sibling and they were seeing Izzy behind my back, I would be devastated by that. Not over the fact that they were seeing each other—I think that would be great—but because she felt like she couldn’t come to me about it.
