“Are you kidding?” I said, feeling a flare of envy toward the young twenty-something and how much of her life she still had ahead of her. “Deciding to take a sabbatical from work and travel around the world for half a year is amazing!”
“It really is,” Jenna added, pulling the last of the onion rings with spicy barbeque sauce closer. “And now’s the perfect time in your life to do it. Who knows? You might end up meeting aforeign movie star in some exotic country and falling madly in love.”
“Ha,” Mina said, snagging the last potato skin from another plate. “I’ll just settle for not having any regrets. I’m not holding my breath for getting starstruck by a famous movie star.”
“Well, here’s hoping,” Brooke said, scooting her chair closer to mine. “I think an affair with a foreign stranger is exactly what you need.” Brooke leaned her shoulder against mine and lowered her voice, causing us all to move closer. “And speaking of affairs. You know, Summer, I’m positive everyone at this table’s noticed a certain silver fox hasn’t been able to tear his eyes away from you.”
“Oh yeah. Those biceps are something else, aren’t they?” Emma added. “Not to mention the tattoos. We all saw the way he was looking at you while y’all were talking at the bar.”
I groaned, struggling to keep myself from banging my head against the table, regardless of the smell and stickiness.
“Yeah. Talk about a man of mystery. Simon has been trying to figure Maverick out since he partnered with TriVolt.”
“There’s nothing to figure out, Addie,” Jenna said, shrugging her shoulders.
Since she was married to the youngest Hansen brother, Mark, I’d probably be better off listening to her insight than Addison’s, who told me her goal tonight was to get me laid—which was about as likely as a shady van pulling into the parking lot and offering curbside lobotomies.
I tried to seem uninterested—swirling the straw in the water glass and keeping my eyes averted from the conversation—but nothing could be further from the truth. I’d like to think he’d only been on my mind since that afternoon in the kitchen, but there was no point lying to the little voice inside my head.
At least the voice kept the judgment to a minimum. What had started as innocent thoughts about him—like wondering how hespent his free time, and why he treated his dog like a princess and was a grump to everyone else—had slowly turned into deeper urges.
Urges to heal the hurt from his past.
Urges that went against the way I’d been treating him.
Guilt seeped into my bones like snow in winter. And although I had no desire to open my heart up to another man after Trey, my body had other ideas. I glanced at the water ring the glass had left on the table, and then at Jenna, rubbing my palms along my thighs.
“I can’t do casual, y’all. I’m just not built that way. But something about Maverick has stuck with me, and I don’t know how to handle it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Emma added, glancing at the table where the guys were sitting and winking at Miller. “But if there’s a chance that what you feel could lead to happiness, why not go for it?”
She made sense. I knew she did. But knowing there was a bigger chance that I’d get hurt made it difficult to agree.
“Listen, Summer. From the time their dad died, and then Maverick’s wife less than a year later, he took it upon himself to become the head of the family. I don’t think he knows how to be anything else. When we were taking the baby for a walk the other day, Mark told me he’s never seen Maverick as out of sorts as he’s been lately.”
“Out of sorts? What exactly does that mean, Jenna?”
The girls leaned closer to hear me, and I put my hands in my lap, bouncing my knee and picking the cuticle on my thumb while I waited for her to continue. Maybe hearing this would help with my indecision. But I had a feeling nothing short of having aconversationwith him would, and that was something I’d been avoiding since our collision of tongues and teeth in my kitchen.
“It means,” she answered, raising a brow and smirking, “that you have one hell of a loyal and trusting man genuinely confused because he’s taken an interest in you.”
“You forgot stubborn,” Emma said, pulling the mozzarella sticks to her side of the table.
“Oh, without a doubt. But remember, sometimes the sweetest rewards come from the hardest challenges.” Jenna adjusted her glasses, pinning me with a look that said resistance was futile and that I needed to trust her.
It was bizarre. In all my life, I’d never met a more intuitive group of women, and a warmth bloomed in my belly knowing they’d accepted me.
“So, are you interested in seeing if there’s potential?” Addison pushed, winking at Jenna, who smiled and rolled her eyes.
“Come on, y’all,” I said, as my poor attempt at deflecting caused several giggles and raised brows. “This isn’t middle school. We’re not passing notes to boys after class, asking them to check yes or no. I’m too old for subtle flirting and wondering if he likes me or not.”
“Then skip all the bullshit. Grab him and kiss him. See if there’s any chemistry.”
My mouth gaped, opening and closing as Addison’s words sunk in. Little did they know just how much chemistry we’d already shared.
They didn’t know about the shower incident.
And they absolutely were in the dark about what we shared in my kitchen.
