“Okay,” she said, daring herself to pry. “When was the last time you kissed someone?”
“Couple of weeks ago. Actually,” he amended, sucking air through his teeth, “last weekend, I think. Yeah.”
Ah—there was the playboy.
“What about you?” he asked.
“Moi?” It came out in a squeak.
“That’s right,mademoiselle, this is a two-way street.”
A laugh snuck up her throat. “I ammademoisellenow, huh? Okay,monsieur, I have not kissed anyone since my last date and that was...Halloween of last year. And it wasnota good kiss. He moved in on me at the doorstep, I tried to give him a thank you-slash-pity goodnight peck to make it less awkward, and it ended up being more awkward than you can imagine. And sloppy.” She shivered.
“Halloween oflast year?”
“Can we get back to how you kissed someone just last weekend, and you practically forgot about it until you corrected yourself?”
Emmitt ducked as he moved the visor out of his way. The sun had gone down, and it was just dark enough to flick on the headlights. “You’re practically a born-again kiss virgin,” he continued.
“The woman you kissed two weeks ago,” Sloane said, shifting the focus back to him. “Was that the same woman you kissed last weekend?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
He chuckled under his breath, but it sounded more sardonic than humorous. “If I meet a lady at the Pub & Grill and we hit it off, we might do a little dancing, we might duck into a quiet corner…and if she leans in for a little nick-mo I’m not going to turn her down.”
“A nick-mo?”
“NCMO,” he said. “Stands for noncommittal make out session. I’m a big fan of them.”
Sloane’s face scrunched up. “You are admitting this to me with no qualms.”
“Sure. We’re word vomiting, right? Or what was it called?”
“Info dumping, but same thing.” She considered that for a moment, wondering if Anna Fielding could have fallen into the mix. “Do you ever catch their names?” she asked.
He did a one shoulder shrug. “Sort of. I mean, they tell me. I just don’t commit them to memory. Some of them will add their number into my phone. Sometimes they text themselves so they have my number too, which sucks because I hate ignoring texts. It makes me feel rude.”
“That’s because itisrude.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
He nodded. “Hey, I’m just being honest with you. I’m not saying I’m like, winning at life here with all of this. It’s just been my go-to for a while now and…” He drifted off there and let out a deep, heavy-sounding sigh.
Sloane turned to take in the look on his face. Dang, he had a nice profile. Very nice. Dark brows to match his eyes, a squared jaw, and full lips. He had the slightest hint of a bump on the bridge of his nose, but that only added character to his otherwise flawless face. Yet it was the furrow in his brow that gave him away. He was troubled.
“How were you going to finish that sentence?” she asked.
“It’s not exactly making me the happiest man alive. And by the time I’m leaning in to kiss a girl, I pretty much already know she’s not someone I’d want to marry down the road—”
“Then why kiss her? And how could you possibly know that if you just met?”
He grinned now, the honest nature of it surprising. “It’s a double standard, so before you tell me that, I’m owning it right here and now. But the woman I want to marry won’t be that easy or…I don’t know, anxious to take the first schmuck who comes along. She won’t throw herself at some guy in a bar in hopes that he’ll call her back. I know I’m a jerk for that. Heck, I don’t even deserve my own definition of the ideal person for me. Not yet. But I’m going to shift. I’m trying to shift already so that when she steps into my life, I’ll deserve her.”
Sloane felt her heart melt a little. He wanted to be worthy of the right one. She liked that. “I have met my share of players over the years,” she said. “And most of them have no desire to change. The fact that you do says something if you ask me.”
