“No,” he corrects slowly. “Sincethat night at The Dew Drop.”
The cab of the truck falls silent.
“That was…” I calculate. “… months ago.”
“Yep.” I stare at him in complete disbelief. “You’re kidding.”
He shakes his head.
“You’ve been seeing Jess formonths?”
“Correct.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
He shrugs lightly. “You’ve been a little preoccupied.”
My mouth falls open. “Preoccupied?”
“First with Easton, and then with your own disaster.”
I gape at him. “The amount of crap you’ve given me about keeping secrets… You absolute hypocrite.”
He grins faintly. “Takes one to know one.”
I shift to face him, my brain still trying to process it all. “You? And Jess? For months?”
“I know,” he says.
“You hate commitment.”
“I do nothatecommitment.”
“You once broke up with a girl because she commented about Valentine’s Day.”
“That was aggressive behavior, Teag. It wasNovember.”
I stare at him, skeptically.
“It was,” he insists. “It implied a future well beyond our third date.”
“And now?”
He exhales slowly. “Now I don’t panic when she texts me at 2a.m. to tell me the middle names she likes for Brooks and Dunn.” He laughs warmly.
I lean against the door, trying to wrap my head around this new information. “You’re serious?”
“Painfully.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
He shrugs. “It started off as casual.”
“It always starts as casual with you.”
“Yeah, well. It didn’t stay that way.” His tone softens, becoming less flippant before he continues, “After a few casual hookups, she told me she wasn’t being a warm bed to crawl into until I got bored or distracted by some bunny at The Dew Drop.”
I huff a soft chuckle. “Sounds like Jess.”
