“Might be the first time anyone has called me patient.”
“But you are. Relentlessly so.”
About her, maybe. Despite her showing not a single sign of reciprocation. Which might make me more dog-headed than patient.
“And nothing seems to get a rise out of you.”
Well, that just simply wasn’t true. I was good at hiding it. Because I was itching to bash my fists into the fuck’s face who made her cry and give up everything she’d worked so hard for to live in a cheap motel while she scrimped and saved to try to rebuild the money he stole from her.
“Some shit does,” I admitted. “But I can usually keep a cool surface. Something you know a thing or two about.”
“You maybe get cool. I get frigid. I can be a real bitch when I’m angry.”
“Eh, I think when women are accused of being ‘bitches,’ what they actually are is hurt and guarded and setting boundaries so it doesn’t happen again. Who got on your bad side most recently? Obvious person excluded.”
“I got pretty icy with Rian a few weeks back.”
“What’d he do?”
“Had sex in my office.”
“No way,” I said, a smile tugging upward, even if I knew she didn’t find it amusing. “I didn’t know his game. Should invite him over to the clubhouse to party.”
“Don’t encourage his debauchery. I can’t look at my desk the same way anymore. I think I used a whole container of bleach wipes on it.”
“You know what would help?”
“What’s that?”
“Fucking on it yourself. That’d erase that other memory clear from your mind.”
“Only you would suggest sex on the desk to fix sex on the desk.”
“It cancels itself out. Like recording over a VHS.”
“I think replacing the desk might be a more sensible solution.”
“Sure. More sensible. But a lot less fun.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“That is my brand. You should order the most expensive desk you can buy and charge it to Rian.”
“Now that’s not a bad idea.”
“For the record,” I said, glancing over at her to watch her reaction, “sex is always a good idea too.”
She rolled her eyes at that, but there was a heavy-lidded look in her eyes that made me start hoping for something I knew was probably never in the cards for me.
If there was even a spark of interest in me outside of a friend or even an annoying brother sort of way, she would have given into it a long time ago. Lord knew I’d been dogged about it.
It would be better not to read into heavy lids or the way she curled into me in her sleep.
Not getting my hopes up too high was probably the only reason I’d managed to continue to go to The Bog, even when I knew she’d be there… and would laugh off my advances for the umpteenth time.
As I pulled into the sprawling hotel in Tucson and watched Lula’s eyes light up in delight, I had a sinking feeling that there wasn’t going to be anything I could do to prevent my hopes from climbing sky-high during this road trip.
Or to stop me from being crushed by the fall when she inevitably turned me down.
