“Hi.” Xeni almost teared up again. It was so good to hear Sloan’s familiar voice.
“Are you okay? Have you been kidnapped? Did a cult get you? Do you need reinforcements? I’ll send Rafe. He’s amazing at organizing and lifting heavy boxes, but he can also spring you from a cult. He can have a man to man with this… Mason? That’s his name, right? Rafe wants to know if you’re okay.”
“I’m fine. Honestly, the whole new husband thing is the least crazy part of all of this. Do you have a few minutes?”
“Of course. Hold on.” Xeni could hear a muffled “Here, babe,” before Sloan returned. “Sorry, just had to hand off my baby,” Sloan groaned. “Okay. Tell me literally everything.” And Xeni did. Well, mostly everything. She told Sloan about the inheritance and the hoops they had to jump through to get it. She kept the truth about her birth to herself. She couldn’t talk about that until she fully wrapped her mind around it. She definitely didn’t want to talk about it until she and her mom had at least one calm conversation, but in the meantime, there was Mason.
“So, you’re like married married. It’s all legal and everything.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s he like?”
“Tall. Very tall. Burly. He’s like the definition of burly. He looks like he just walked out of the woods and onto a farm.”
“Cute enough to make you pop a titty out?”
Xeni laughed, remembering all the conversations she and Sloan had had when she’d first started seeing Rafe. Their stakes had been a bit higher since Sloan was Rafe’s boss at the time. She’d hired him as a live-in nanny to take care of her twins, but once they realized how attracted they were to each other, things had changed. Sloan had been wary because dating the nanny was a red-flag recipe for disaster. Luckily, things worked out just fine. Great even, and there was a new infant son to prove it. But before they’d said their own vows and decided to go half on a baby, there had been many nights when Sloan and Xeni had been up texting and talking about what Sloan should do about the new man in her life. Now it looked like it was Sloan’s time to return the favor, even if there was no real relationship to speak of.
“He is very cute, very handsome. I don’t mind looking at him at all.”
“Do you like him?” Sloan asked. “I mean, you two look pretty cozy in those pictures. That doesn’t look like a shotgun wedding between two strangers who can’t stand each other.”
“Well, there was never a point at which we couldn’t stand each other. There hasn’t been time, but you got the strangers part right. He’s… I’m trying to think of the right word. He’s easy to be around. You know me.”
“I do,” Sloan laughed. “I know how careful you are, but you didn’t answer my question. Do you like him?”
“I like him as well as I can, since I barely know him,” she said cautiously, like he wasn’t just inside of her a couple hours ago. “He seems like a good guy. He’s kind. Very considerate. He can cook. I know that’ll score him some major Sloan points. He plays the bagpipes.”
“He sounds like a well-rounded young man,” Sloan teased.
Xeni was quiet for a second. She realized then that she actually wanted Sloan to meet him. She wanted all of her friends to meet him. “I mean, yeah, I like him. And I may have done more than let him touch my butt.”
“Aww, Xeni,” Sloan cooed. “Is the dry spell broken?”
“It is.”
“How does it feel?”
“Good. I mean, I embarrassed the shit out of myself by crying on him during foreplay, but we managed to pull it together.”
“And it was good?”
Xeni instantly felt her cheeks and her thighs warm all over again. “Yes. It was very good. Ten out of ten, would fuck again.”
“Yay,” Sloan giggled. “I’m so happy for you. And you said you were gonna give Miss Havisham a run for her money.”
“Hey, there’s still time. He might break my heart and then I’ll go mad and convince your girls to go out and destroy a few men, just for a taste of justice. Anyway, none of that matters. It’s over in thirty days.”
“What if you don’t want it to be over in thirty days?”
“Things are a little more complicated than that.”
“What do you think he wants?”
“To sample more of this sweet, sweet ass,” Xeni replied.
“Well obviously, but I have a hard time believing he’s not half in love with you already. Do you have any more pictures of him? I can’t really see his face too well.”
