“Uhh, how old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
I let out a relieved breath. “I’m fifty-one.” Drew’s smile instantly grows. “What?” I ask with a chuckle.
“Fifty-one is a hot age.”
“Shit.” I laugh and drink from my beer. “If that’s what you think, I’m not going to argue.”
Drew lightly clears his throat. “Ahem?”
I squint at him. “What?”
“Twenty-seven is a…” he prompts.
It takes me a second. Then I bark a laugh. “You little shit.”
“Say it.”
I grit my teeth. “Twenty-seven is a hot age.”
Drew laughs loudly, clearly delighted, then crawls up onto me. Before I know it, he’s practically in my lap as he kisses my mouth, long and slow.
“We’re hot together,” he tells me.
That answers any questions I had about whether or not he’d be into hooking up again tonight. The small part of me that was holding out in case the answer was no disintegrates. I grab him by the hips, sinking my fingers into his flesh, then drag him close as I kiss him back, harder and greedier.
“Fuck,” Drew moans, then pulls away. He looks dizzy and happy. His lips are puffy and raw from my stubble, and his eyes are half-closed. He takes a swig of his beer, then another.
I reach out and stroke the side of his face, and when I do, Drew stretches his legs over mine.
“Good,” I tell him with a nod, and Drew smiles.
Somehow, I’m confident that he heard everything I intended to say in that one word. I don’t feel that most people understand me, honestly, but with Drew, something in me insists that he’s listening.
“What about you?” I ask him. “How’s your day?”
“Oh, pretty good. I told you, I’m staying on my friend’s couch?”
“Right.” Although I’ve got a bed he’d fit in perfectly. “Piper.”
“She had the day off, so we just hung out together. She’s helping me do career planning, and I’m fixing up her old laptop for her.”
“Career planning, huh?”
“Yeah.” Drew scratches the back of his head. “I’ve got years of experience running a business, but I never finished my college degree, so I’m kind of in a weird spot.”
“A family business is a hell of a thing.”
Drew tilts his head to the side. “You said something about that the other night.”
“It’s a lot of responsibility. You’ve got other people depending on you, strangers and employees and your family, too.”
“But you said something else,” Drew says, pushing a little. “It sounded like there was a story. I know you’re saying you’re not a loner or whatever, but something did happen, right?”
I grit my teeth. A lot of shit happened. My dad happened. Mack happened. My nephew happened. But Drew was just talking about his life, and I want to listen, not to dump my own sob stories at his feet. That’s not my style.
Then he reaches out and takes my hand, squeezing it softly. “I want to know you,” he says. “Please.”
