She handed it over and got another for herself, then poured her creamer in it.
“How did you sleep?”
“Like a baby. I wasn’t drunk.”
“Not on three beers. Then I’d think you were a lightweight.”
“Hardly,” he said. “But I’ve limited my alcohol lately. I haven’t had more than one for a good year. It hasn’t sat well or I’ve been babysitting and needed to stay sharp.”
“Babysitting?” she asked. She thought Archer was the only kid who had been in his life lately.
“Players,” he said. “Sorry. That is what I called it. Some of them can get out of hand and it fell on me to make sure that didn’t happen when we were on the road. At home, they were on their own.”
“They are all adults. Why was it your responsibility?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be, but it got slapped to me. I didn’t always travel as much in the beginning. Just one of those things that evolved.”
“Got it,” she said.
She didn’t like to ask too much about his old job.
Did she feel a pang of worry when he said they wanted him back? Yeah, she did. But she couldn’t let him know that.
Or that she’d heard a few times he was a different person there. It’d make her wonder who the real Jayce was if she learned much more.
But as the night went on and he talked with his friends, she saw the same Jayce she always knew. Maybe Jocelyn was right, there was part of him that was different.
He wasn’t reserved. He wasn’t watching more than talking or acting. Waiting to see what were the right words to speak.
She hadn’t realized that he might have been doing that with her and it was something she wanted to address.
But they’d gotten in the door and he acted exactly the way she hoped. You can’t fake that. You can’t make it up.
He wanted her with the same intensity as she had wanted him.
When they were together, there were parts of her that let loose and just flew with her arms out wide, the wind blowing through her fingers.
Hanging out with Noah and Simon reminded her of all the fun she had as a kid and missed so much.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked, yawning again.
“Do we want to stand here and talk like this?”
“I happen to like you messed up,” he said. “And standing there in a tank top and tiny underwear. You have no idea how sexy that is.”
“More than a little lace and silk teddy?”
He waved his hand. “Everyone looks good in that. But what you’ve got going on is effortless, natural sex appeal. This is more my style.”
“Something makes me think it wasn’t like that before.”
She didn’t know where her jealousy was emerging from. Or the insecurities that she’d had when she suspected Tucker was cheating. She’d always been so confident and her ex just stole that part of her.
She thought she’d moved past it all, but hearing some more about his job with the guys last night, it got her thinking thatall that time with the players meant women were most likely throwing themselves at him too.
“My tastes haven’t changed much,” he said. “Why?”
“I don’t know.”
