I couldn’t help myself, especially not when he was being so open. I figured he’d turn this around on me sooner or later, I knew how persistent he could be, but I was going to milk this as long as he was willing. “You’ve never had a girlfriend?”
That got me a nostril flaring. “No.”
“Never?”
He gave me one of his “duh” looks. “No.”
I made a face that had him doing that low barely a chuckle thing.
“Have I seen the same woman a few times? Yeah…”
That wasn’t jealousy or anything that made my stomach tense.
“But a fucking old lady? A girlfriend? Like we’re friends and talk about shit and go over to spend time with each other? Nah.” He shook his head. “Nah.”
Sex. He was trying to tell me the only interest in women he had was only if it was sex-related. I couldn’t say that it didn’t leave a weird feeling in my gut, but… it explained some things. I wasn’t going to worry about that bitter thing in my stomach at the idea of him having sex with people.
It wasn’t like I was a virgin.
But his comment and his look helped me understand why I needed to settle my expectations for what they were.
He was here, talking to me, and he could be kind and nice and caring when he wanted to be, but that was it. It wasn’t like that should be a surprise or anything. If I looked at it a certain way, maybe it would actually make me feel nice that he saw me in a different light… in a way.
I guessed.
“Why you here, Luna?” he asked again, going back to the topic of me a lot sooner than I had hoped.
I shoved his previous words aside and focused. “Because I’d like to meet somebody to be my friend and spend time with me.” I turned his words around on him.
He rubbed his fingers against his glass. “Why don’t you already have somebody?”
Why?
“Thought you were dating somebody when we first met,” he kept going.
Oh… “We had already broken up by then, but… you know, things just ended. He wanted something that I didn’t, and we broke up,” I told him, knowing it was coming off as mysterious, but hoping he wouldn’t hook onto the bait.
He was nosey enough that he did, and I couldn’t help but feel his surprise. “What he want?”
I had walked right into that, hadn’t I? I fidgeted with my straw again. “Between us?”
He nodded.
“A threesome.”
Nothing on his features registered surprise.
“With his ex-wife,” I finished, giving him a smile and kind of raising a shoulder. I was over it. Now it just made me laugh.
Rip blinked, took a drink, and then took his time with his next question, making an almost stunned face. “Say that again.”
I finally did laugh. “He wanted us to have a threesome with his ex-wife. Apparently that’s something he did sometimes with other people, even after they divorced, but I had no idea until he asked.”
That big body leaned back in his chair, but that funny face didn’t go anywhere. “He broke up with you over it?”
I fiddled with the straw again, looking down into the Sprite before raising my gaze back to him. “I broke up with him over it. He said he was sorry and that he shouldn’t have asked, but it was too late. It hurt my feelings, and I couldn’t get over it. I mean, I don’t think I was being overly dramatic, but it’s a little weird that a man still has sex with his ex-wife. They had two daughters together. You know?
“He swore it wasn’t a big deal if we didn’t, that they were over for a reason and that it didn’t mean anything, it was just sex, he’d said. But back then, he’d been the only one I’d ever…” Crap. He didn’t need to know where the rest of that had been going. Did he? Nope. “He was really nice, and he treated me really well, and I know he cared about me, but in that question… he broke my trust, and I knew I would never be able to get over it. What, he’d bring up having a threesome with her again later on? Or get bored with me and then find someone else to suggest? I don’t think so. So I broke up with him, and that was that.”
