Eventually she nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s try this again. I want you because you’re amazing and sexy as hell. But your phone battery lasts longer than my relationships. Which is why I’m not anything you should want. And I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I don’t wantyouto be one of them. I like you, Mia. More than that, I care about you and respect you as a person and a friend. If I hurt you, that would be a scar I carried forever. Which is why you’re not anything I need.”
Proud of himself for how eloquently he’d framed his explanation, he couldn’t help adding, “See? Simple.”
He expected her to say something along the lines ofOh! Yeah. That makes total sense.So he was a little perplexed when she just continued to blink at him.
Eventually, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and said slowly, “Let me see if I have this right. You want me. But you won’t act on it because you’re bad at relationships and—”
“Not bad at them,” he cut in. “I just don’tdothem.”
She rubbed her temple. He wasn’t sure if that was a step up or a step down from fiddling with her earrings. “Okay. So you want me, but you won’t act on it because you don’t do relationships. And because you don’t do relationships, you think I’ll get hurt. Have I got the gist of it?”
He nodded. “Told you it’s simple.”
Her snort was delightfully unladylike. But there was nothing delightful about her next words. “Wow. Too bad you can’t count jumping to conclusions as exercise. If you could, you’d be able to skip a week’s worth of workouts.”
The look he shot her said he heard her sarcasm. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you assume Iwanta relationship.”
His chin yanked back so hard he was surprised it didn’t hit his chest. “Don’t you?”
“No!”
He didn’t realize his mouth had slung open until a gnat buzzed by. Slamming his jaws shut, he shook his head and stared at her in disbelief.
Despite her current vagabond lifestyle, she’d always struck him as the type of woman who’d settle down someday. Probably with a history professor who wore tweed and drank fine Scotch and golfed on the weekends. They’d live in Chicago, have two kids—a boy and a girl—and raise them in one of those old three-flats the city was known for.
She’d still go on excavations, of course. And in the summers, Mr. Tweed and the two rugrats would join her in faraway lands where they would eat exotic foods and learn a little of the local languages.
He’d seen it all so clearly in his mind’s eye.
How could I have been so wrong?
Then it occurred to him...
Maybe I’m not wrong. Maybe when she says she doesn’t want a relationship, she doesn’t meanever. She just means withme.
The thought shouldn’t bother him. Itshouldn’t; he’d just admitted he didn’t do relationships. So why did he suddenly feel like someone had stabbed him in the heart with a fixed blade KA-BAR?
Yet again, she proved when it came to assuming things he reallydidmake an ass out of himself, because she added, “Not every woman dreams of the wedding and the husband and the house in town with two point three kids running around. You get that, right? You get that it’s not 1950?”
“Alex says the new statistic is actually one point nine kids.”
“Hear that?” She cupped her hand around her ear. “It’s me not caring because that’s not my point.”
Had he really thought discovering her salty wit and dry sense of humor was more exciting than unearthing long lost treasure?
I take it back, he thought irritably.
Aloud, he said, “Anyone ever told you that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit?”
“Oh!” The look on her face said that, along with relocating his nose to his forehead, she was also seriously considering rearranging a few of his teeth. The front ones in particular. “Go back to weaving your stupid mat. I don’t have the patience to pretend like I like you right now.”
He waved away her statement for the lie it was. “You like me. You said so yourself. No backsies.”
He knew he’d hit the mark when she had to suck in her cheeks to keep from smiling. After a couple of seconds, she couldn’t help it and chuckled. The sound was like bubbles of happiness that burst in the air.
