He now had a suspicion of what she was talking about, but he still didn’t know.
“So, as you can tell,”—she swept her hand in front of her—“I accepted your ‘let’s stop squabbling’ invitation.So, just to be sure I’m reading this right, now we’re friends.”
Right.
That was what she was talking about.
“We’re friends,” he confirmed.
“Okay, then, don’t get me wrong.It’s taking something to suggest this, but I’ll get it if you decline.I know where we are.If you say no, this won’t change.”She flapped her hand between them.
He was back to being baffled.
“Not following, May,” he replied.
Her eyes lit for some reason when he said that.
And then she pulled the earth out from under him.
“What I’m suggesting is, we’re friends, and we know we’re good together…that way…so how about we be friends…with benefits?”
He was glad he wasn’t taking a sip from his beer, or he’d have spewed it on her.
She was watching him, and he didn’t miss the tension in her body.
The tension had hit his body too.
But one particular part of his anatomy was springing to attention.
“Make no mistake, I want you again, Mabel,” he said low.
She licked her lips—not fucking helping—and nodded.“Okay.”
“And I want that bad,” he added.
He watched her swallow.
“But shit like that goes south.”
“Not between two adults who get it,” she refuted.
“You are not her, not even close, know that to your soul, Mabel.But Bree was essentially a fuck buddy.We didn’t have the same interests, but she was passable in bed, she could be good when she wasn’t being lazy and acting self-involved.We shared some drinks.We’d go out to dinner for the company.We’d hang for the same reason.But for the most part, anytime we got together, we did it with the end game of fucking.There were no promises.Nothing building.No deep conversations.I didn’t share about me, and I didn’t ask about her.What we had was surface, you couldn’t interpret it as anything else.We never discussed exclusivity, for example.And still, she got it in her head that there was more, and it twisted her up to do some seriously stupid shit.”
“No, Hutch.Obviously, I don’t know her.And my conversation with Abigail didn’t get into any nitty-gritty.But from what I heard, I know women like her.What you had with her didn’t twist her up.That you dumped her, and she didn’t dump you, did.”
That hit him like a bullet because…
Christ.
She was right.
And she kept being that.
“You taught her a lesson she never wanted to learn, but was eventually going to, that her beauty didn’t make her omnipotent.Although I’d never want you to go through that, ever, because that had to suck huge, it’s good she learned it now.She won’t always be beautiful.It’s better she knows that now before she hits forty, forty-five, and starts becoming invisible, as women often do.If she settles that deep into thinking her walking into a room will mean the world will be laid at her feet, bones get brittle with age, and it would crush her when she takes that fall.”
“Not exactly glad to be of service, but you’re right,” he replied.
“I’m just going to say, I had a really bad breakup before I came to Misted Pines.”She put that right out there too.“I’m not looking for a relationship.You’re interesting.”She smiled.“You can be grouchy, but even that’s interesting.”
