“You were drooling all over each other.”
She perked up at that. “You think he was drooling over me?”
“Not as badly as you were over him.”
The waitress came over just then, gave them a basket of chips and a bowl of hot sauce and took their orders, including the to-go order for Trevor. She took a chip, dipped it in the hot sauce and sighed happily when she put it in her mouth. “These chips are fabulous.”
“They make them here,” Angel said. “So they’re extra fresh.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this gone over a man,” Jedidiah said, picking up the conversation where they left off.
Angel sighed. “I wouldn’t say I was gone over him. But damn, he’s just so pretty.”
“Gorgeous,” she agreed dryly. “So when are you going out with him?”
“He hasn’t asked.”
“So? What are you waiting for? Ask him.”
“No.” She shook her head decisively. “He needs to make the first move.” She picked up her iced tea and drank some.
“Why?”
“He’s an alpha male. That’s how they roll.”
She thought about that for a minute. “How do you know? That he’s alpha, I mean.”
Angel shrugged. “I can just tell. Besides, he’s the head of a huge family. He almost has to be alpha. And before you ask, almost every guy I’ve ever dated who was an alpha male wanted to make the first move.”
“Maybe Mateo’s different.”
She stared in the direction he’d gone. “Maybe,” she conceded.
The waitress returned with their orders. Taco salad for Angel and a chicken quesadilla with rice and beans for Jedidiah.
“But enough about me. Tell me about ‘the closet,’” Angel said, making air quotes.
Jedidiah had mentioned the storm and the closet but she hadn’t gone into detail. Not that there was a lot of detail to go into. “It was nice, actually. Especially since no tornadoes touched down near us. We talked and got to know each other a little better.”
“That sounds boring.”
“It wasn’t. We talked a little about our pasts.”
Angel looked stunned. “You never talk about your past. I still don’t know what you even did for a living.”
Jedidiah wisely ignored that comment. “I asked him why he moved here. He admitted it was because of a woman and then said he didn’t want to talk about having a failed relationship. Then he asked me if I wanted to talk about my failed relationships.”
“You told him you hadn’t had one, right?”
“Wrong. I told him it hadn’t exactly failed.”
Angel stared at her. “Wait a minute. You had a failed relationship? This is the first I’ve heard about it. You’ve never even mentioned a relationship period, failed or otherwise. I know we haven’t seen each other that often but it’s not as if we never talked.”
“I know.” But she wasn’t undercover anymore. She didn’t have to keep everything to herself. Sure, some of her experiences she could never talk about, but this wasn’t one of those. Noah had been gone for over two years. It still hurt, would probably always hurt, but maybe if she started opening up about her past, she might be better able to deal with it.
She’d told Damaris most of what had happened. There was no reason she couldn’t tell her friend some of it, anyway. So she told Angel the same story she’d told Trevor. The truth, just not all of it. “I really loved him,” she said as she finished. “It took me a long time to learn to deal with the loss.”
“I’m so sorry, Jedidiah. So that’s why you came back?”
