“Is he actually looking? Or waiting for it to fall from the sky on to his lap?”
“Don’t be like that, honey. Jonas is a sweet man. I like him.”
Yeah, Mom liked a lot of men.
How did she do that? Shift from one to another without getting attached or hurt or even a little upset? She even remained friends with most of them afterwards, too. Like she had with Dad. Though Krista could barely remember her parents together, they were always amicable and polite to each other.
Krista couldn’t imagine being so friendly and relaxed toward Shane...or Ryan. Both were irritating the hell out of her right now—Ryan for his over attentiveness, and Shane for his being...such a dick.
And both had challenged her long-held beliefs about solid, steady relationships. They shook the earth beneath her feet. Solidness and steadiness didn’t sound very passionate. But where was the fun in passion if it wasn’t founded on the solid and steady ground she’d always had mapped out for herself? So far, passion alone sucked—or rather, the aftereffects did. That blast of heat and want and need was great while it lasted, but it now left her feeling empty, mixed up, and hurt. Like she’d been used and discarded.
“Oh, sweetie, are you okay?”
Krista looked up and blinked. “Sure, I’m okay.”
But Mom’s look said she knew differently. “Tell me about your vacation. The other day, Lisa showed me photos on the internet of that hunk you took off hiking with.” Mom nudged her elbow and flashed her a saucy smile. “I bet you had a lot of fun with him.”
“Ew, Mom, seriously? He’s just one of the athletes I work with.”
“Whatever you say, sweetie.” But when Mom put her arms around her and made her feel five years old again, Krista suspected Lisa had already told her she’d been crying over that particular athlete last night. “Why don’t you and Lisa come over for dinner tonight? I’ll throw some pizzas in the oven, and we can watch a movie. We’ll have a girls’ night.”
“What about Jonas?”
“I’ll get rid of him. He can go stay with his brother.”
Mom arranging family time? Wow, I must look really miserable.But Krista snuggled farther into her mother’s arms. “Thanks, Mom, that sounds great. I’ll text Lisa now to tell her.”
She pulled out her phone and saw another message from Ryan.
>I’ve made reservations at Ciro’s for tomorrow night after work. Please Krista, we really need to talk.
Ryan was right. They did need to talk. Well, not talk exactly, because that suggested yet another discussion.
And what Krista had to tell him wasn’t up for debate.
***
“So, you made this hundred-dollar bet to make Ryan jealous,” Mom said, helping herself to another slice of pizza. “But you ended up sleeping with Shane.”
“And the sex was just for fun, huh?” Lisa chimed in. She picked a piece of mushroom off her slice and popped it into her mouth with a saucy wink. “About time, sis.”
Krista rolled her eyes. She wasn’t in the habit of talking about her sex life with Mom and Lisa—probably because she’d never had much of one to talk about—but she’d been so miserable today that she hadn’t been able to stop the words from coming. She told them everything that had happened with Shane. Did they understand how she was feeling? Krista wasn’t sure, but it was good to get the thoughts and memories out of her head so she could make sense of them.
“Being with Shanewasfun,” she said. “And I know he’s been hurt in the past, but I never thought he’d run out on me the way he did when Ryan turned up.”
“Whoa, Ryan turned up?”
Krista squeezed her eyes shut, reliving that awful moment. “Ryan turned up with some of the gang, literally swept me off my feet, and kissed me.”
“Did Shane see that?” Mom asked.
Krista’s eyes flew open. “No. I don’t know. Maybe...”
But Shane had been at his car, and wouldn’t he have said something if he had seen? Something sarcastic or angry or jealous...anything to show that he hadn’t liked another man kissing her?
Instead, he’d looked...well, calm and composed. And detached.
“If he saw you kissing Ryan, that might explain why he hightailed it out of there.”
