Emery surely missed her uncle when he drowned, but she still has her father, and she wasn’t standing on the dock when the boat was lost. She doesn’t get on a boat for a living and live with the grief every day.
And thank God. I want her to stay the free-spirited, hopeful, sunny woman that she is.
Not become grumpy and glass-half-empty like I am. I also want to fuck her again.
And I know she wants it too.
So, I calculate the risk of her proposal.
Two weeks of casual sex is as low risk as we can get.
“I’m in.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Emery
“Is it weird that I hate myself just a little?”
“Why would you hate yourself?” Alyssa sits across from me in our booth at Lucky Cowboy. “You asked for what you wanted. And he said yes. So you’re on the same page.”
I take a sip of beer from the ice-cold mug the server places in front of me.
Okay, I take several sips before I have the courage to be honest with my bestie.
“I may have claimed to be on that page with him, but my heart is a little further into the book.”
Alyssa narrows her pretty brown eyes. “How many pages in?”
“Like a bunch of chapters.”
She stares at me as she slowly pulls her blond hair back into a ponytail and ties it with the elastic that was wrapped around her slender wrist. Then she leans closer and whispers, “Are you saying you caught feelings for your Maine fisherman?”
“Shh.” I clap my hand over her mouth.
She pulls my hand away and laughs. “I’m joking. It’s obvious you’re crushing on him hard.”
“More than just in bed.”
“I get it. But he sounds like he may feel the same.”
“He doesn’t.”
I’ve never felt surer of anything in my life. Michael was so quick—too quick—to agree to my casual proposal.
“Were you testing him when you suggested no strings?”
“No!” I wasn’t. “Well, maybe I was. But not consciously.”
“And he invited you to dinner with his family tonight?”
“Yep.”
Thatwas a surprise, I’ll admit. The fastest way to having strings is to get tight with a person’s loved ones. Or to see them as a common enemy. Either way, Michael invited me into his inner circle, and that’s an invitation I sense he doesn’t dole out on the regular.
“Keep me posted.” Alyssa taps her phone. “Send texts from dinner. Preferably with photos attached.”
I laugh. “I’m probably going to be busy trying not to make an ass of myself. You know how bad I come off at formal gatherings.”
