I shrugged, stroking her hair.“I have no idea. I just do.”
Saying I love you to a one-night stand was the corniest thing I ever did. But I’m a man of passion, and when we were together that night, I got the feeling we were kindred spirits and—not to reinforce the corniness—something in my heart told me this was the girl I would marry.
A little after dawn the next morning, I woke up and Fio was gone.
Thanks to Fio, I learned my lesson. Maybe I was crazy for putting so many of my emotional eggs in her basket. Maybe I was stuck in a fantasy. But after that experience, I felt it was better to stay closed off than to open your doors up to hurt. And that is why I’ll be glad to get this interview over with tomorrow. Once we have the formalities out of the way, we’ll be able to enjoy each other.
It had been dark for over an hour now, and the kitchen timer dinged so I turned the heat down to low on the corned beef, cabbage and carrots I was cooking. I grinned as I stirred its contents, remembering back to last week when I came home to Cat having cooked up a traditional Spanish paella. It was delicious. She was the best wife a guy could ask for. I didn’t ask around on the team, but I was pretty sure none of the other guys had a wife who dressed up like a literal bunny and made homecooked meals, so I wanted to do the same for her.
My mind floated. Maybe wewouldmake a good couple, like, long term. She definitely worked long, and odd hours, but so did I.
But she worked in D.C. Chicago had hospitals too, though.
I shook it off. The cabbage was at the perfect temperature, so I put it on the lowest heat setting.
What was the male equivalent to dressing up in lingerie? Cleaning the house, maybe?
I looked around skeptically. Cat kept her place incredibly orderly, and while I was fine with her rearranging my house to make it more organized, something told me she had a way of doing things here that was best not for me to mess with.
What would Magic Mike do, I wondered, wandering around the house. I did some pushups in her living room, which wasmy custom when I was feeling bored or nervous. They somehow always seemed to calm me down.
As I was standing up, my head (who was the one with the big head now?) accidentally brushed a moleskin notebook on her nightstand, and it flipped onto the floor and opened to the most recent page.
I swear I don’t like looking at people’s private journals. But the first words I saw written down in her book wereworried, relationship,andDustin. I didn’t open the page. But I admit it, I looked.
Dustin says the past doesn’t affect him, but I can see it in his eyes. Who is this girl from the past? How did she mess him up? We all have our skeletons, though. I have mine—the night I’ll never forget—and he has this. Are two people ever really meant to know each other fully, and be totally transparent?
My blood pressure started to rise. Well, I couldn’t hate on her, because whenever I thought of Fio, I did get distant. I tried to block her out, and it made no sense, but some part of me still weirdly wondered what she was up to. If she was out there, hooking up with lots of guys and then just ghosting them like she did to me. Yet, it had been almost ten years since our one-night stand. iPhones were barely a thing then, neither of us had social media at the time, and I definitely couldn’t even pick her out of a lineup these days, even if I tried.
I only had that one silly polaroid photo of Fio. And it didn’t even show her face.
So I wasn’t innocent here.
My mind wandered angrily, though. Jealousy flared through me. What was this ‘night she would never forget?’ I picked thejournal up, put it back on the nightstand, then dropped down and did fifty pushups.
These wereangrypushups, this time.
I wasn’t angry at her, exactly. I was also angry at myself. And the world, for its messiness.
Since I was sweating, I threw off my shirt so I had just my jeans and boots on now, and took a few deep breaths, looking around her room.
My suitcase was stacked in the corner, and It looked like a hobo had taken up residence here, the way a couple of shirts had fallen out of it. I was about to tidy up since I knew even my slight messiness would be enough to give Cat anxiety, when I heard the doorbell ring.
I went to the door, wondering why on earth Cat would be ringing her own doorbell. Did she forget her key?
When I looked through the keyhole, my blood pressure skyrocketed. I opened the door.
“Hello,” the man said with an evil-looking smile, pulling at the corner of his mustache.
“Mr. Winterborne,” I growled. “What are you doing here?”
“Drop-by visit,” he said with the same pseudo-smile. “It’s been specially ordered.”
“I don’t understand. We are scheduled to come into your office tomorrow.”
“Right. Which is why I decided to drop by tonight. Surprise.” He let out a single chuckle and made this jazz hand-like gesture which did not amuse me.
“I’m not letting you set foot in this house.”
