She meant it.
They all meant it, but she thought he was involved with hersister so it hit closer to home, thus shemeantit.
“Not a problem,” he muttered as she passed him to get to thepantry.
He couldn’t avoid Lottie anymore, not with strength ofwarmth coming from her direction, so he shifted his gaze to hers.
Yeah, that was why he did it right there.That look on herface.
He’d known he was going to be a man who was going to be asoldier for a long time before he became one.That was about a lot of thingsthat were too numerous to boil down to just that look on Lottie’s face.Itincluded his mother and his sisters and the sense of duty and loyalty he had tothem since they had no other man in their life.They were not wallflowers ordoormats.Not one of them.It didn’t matter.It was the man he was from earlyon that dictated the man he was going to be.
But that look on Lottie’s face and her wrestling withouthesitation with her nephews on her front lawn and her throwdown with a womanshe identified as possible competition to claim him morphing into a throwdownto avenge him were why he got in.
And in a different world, one where she really was his, theywould be how he could live with what he’d seen, what he’d done and what he’dlost in the dust, dirt and sand.
To be the kind of man who earned that look.
Who deserved it.
And who could claim the woman who wore it.
“It isn’t a big deal,” he lied.
“You’re absolutely wrong and you know it so shut up,pookie-loo,” she returned.
A good ten swats.
Bare ass.
Mo cut ties with her eyes and bent down to pick up the lastbag, forgotten in the ice cream rush, not surprisingly carrying the freshfruits and vegetables.
He put it on the counter and unpacked it.
“So…Afghanistan?”
She’d barely shut the door on her sister and nephews.
He was standing in her living room where he’d retreated,really fucking quick, after he hovered close at her back when she was sayinggoodbye to her family.
She was standing in the arched entryway that led off herfoyer into her living room.
“Lottie—”
“And,” she cut him off, “to go back to our discussion at thegrocery store, you may have lived with that woman for two years, but Iama woman, so I know the plays she was making, and they were not what you thinkthey were.”
Mo shook his head.“We’re not doing this.”
She started to move forward.“We are so totally doing this.”
He took a step back and she stopped.
“We’re not, because we can’t,” he declared.
“We can, we are, and I’ll get us started.Backtracking in abelated effort at being an adult, you should know, anyone else, no way I’d bein a nightie making breakfast.”
He clenched his teeth because he had an idea he knew whatwas coming next.
“I was in a nightie making breakfast with you because you’rehot and I wanted you to jump me,” she kept at him.
