Page 55 of Masters of Control

“That sounds like a good idea. At least then, you know your options.”

“That’s what I was thinking. Anyway...”

Even though she fell silent, Q could tell she wanted to talk about something else. Anything else. So, he went for the obvious.

“What about your dad? Did you tell him you have a boyfriend?”

“I did.” She laughed. “Turns out he had some news for me on that front as well. He has a girlfriend! He was kind of scared to tell me until I told him about you. Apparently, her Christmas tradition is to go on a cruise with her friends, and she invited him to go with her, but he didn’t want to say yes until he’d asked me.”

“Did you tell him to go?”

“Yeah, I told him he deserves a vacation like that. It’s not like we have to celebrate our holiday on the day of. Plus, I was talking to Morgan about the holidays, and she’s all alone for them so I figured she and I could spend Christmas together if I didn’t have anyone, too.”

Well, there went his hope of convincing Sam to come down to meet his family for Christmas.

If it was too soon for Thanksgiving, it’s definitely too soon for Christmas, dipshit. Thanksgiving doesn’t have the pressure of gifts and everything like that.

It was probably for the best that she had other plans. Otherwise, he’d want to stay with her instead of going to North Carolina again. There was no way his grandma or his mama would be okay with that, especially not for a brand-new girlfriend they hadn’t even met yet.

“That sounds like fun.” It would also mean Morgan was looked after for the holiday.

“Yeah, Kincaid’s going to be there, too. Morgan had already made plans with him because Zach is going out west to see his family and he’s not ‘out’ to them yet about Kincaid.”

Well, that sounded… not good. Q wasn’t close with Kincaid and Zach, but he knew they had been together for a while. Thanks to the gossip vine at Friendsgiving, he’d heard a few murmurs about Kincaid being out as bi while Zach was only out at the club, which had been causing some friction between them. They made a good couple, though, so he hoped it wasn’t the case or that they figured it out.

“That should be a fun group, I’m glad you won’t be alone.”

“Me, too. I’ll miss my dad, and it’ll be weird not seeing him on the day of, but he seems really excited about being invited to go with her, and I don’t want to stand in his way.”

There was an odd note in her voice, but Q wasn’t sure if it was because of her dad’s new girlfriend, not seeing him on Christmas, or the idea that she was somehow standing in his way.

“Will you get to meet her?”

“Yeah, but things are so crazy for everyone during December, it probably won’t happen until after the holidays.” She laughed. “Which is probably for the best. It’ll give me time to get used to the idea of my dad having a girlfriend. Maybe I can introduce you to him at the same time, and we can make it a whole thing.”

Q laughed but didn’t hate the idea. That way he could be there for Sam. Even though she was an adult, it couldn’t be easy knowing her dad had a new woman in his life.

“I’d like that,” he said. “Then we’ll just have to figure out a time for you to come meet my family.”

“Sounds good.” The happiness in her voice made him feel a little better that they’d be apart for Christmas.

They were moving fast, yes, but it wasn’t as if they’d just met before they started dating. If anything, this felt like the way things were supposed to have been.

22

Reality Check

Sam

Sam: I can’t make it to dinner tonight, sorry!

Sending the text message sucked. The reason sucked even more. Sam hated not having money. Part of her was tempted to put dinner on a credit card, but she knew it was far too easy to start putting all sorts of things on the card, and she didn’t have the money to pay it off.

She’d been spending too much doing fun things as it was, and while she was a big believer in feeding her soul, at the end of the day, actually feeding herself had to take priority. At least she’d been able to talk to Patrick, who had been happy to let her sign up for some shifts at Marquis and Stronghold, doing the serving/clean-up stuff in exchange for her membership. To her surprise, it wasn’t even a discount. He’d said she was completely covered with everything she was doing.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any paying positions, or she would have jumped at the chance for a second job at the clubs.

She’d already spent her lunch hour sending out her resume in a fit of anger and angst.