Page 52 of Wrecked

“That was Brad Pitt. You’re mixing up your heartthrobs.”

Leaning back, I balk at him in amazement. “Look at you, knowing your movies. Back in the day, I couldn’t get you to watch anything that didn’t have cops and robbers. What’s changed?”

“A girl,” he says nonchalantly. Then, he takes a bite of his burger.

“She’s not from here or else I would have known.”

He gives me the side eye. “You think you know everything that happens in this town?”

“You know I do,” I say pointedly. “Who’s the last girl you went out with?”

He swallows and answers, “Maggie, and she’s from Columbus.”

I watch as he continues to chew. I, on the other hand, can’t take a bite until I know more. “You see her often?”

“No. We dated for a while. It ended.”

He proceeds to eat while I stare at him, waiting for him to say more. He sees my wide-eyed, waiting-for-more-information look, but he doesn’t say anything else.

“Yes, but why did it end?”

He stops and thinks, reliving that time in his life. “She wanted a commitment. I wasn’t ready.”

I lean in. “What about now?”

He turns to me, and with a look in his eyes, as if the past just collided with the present, he says, “I’m beginning to wonder if I’m starting to be.”

It takes about ten seconds for me to realize that I’m not breathing. With a little cough, I nod my head and say, “That’s it then. You have to drive to Columbus right now and tell Maggie before she ends up with some consolation prize.”

His brows furrow. “What am I telling her?”

I throw my hands up in the air. “That you love her.”

His eyes shift to the side and then come back to mine that are just looking at him in bewilderment. “No. She’s not the one.”

“You really should start dating again. I can set you up. I mean, I’m like the Cupid of Cedar Ridge. With the amount of connections I’ve made, people should start naming their firstborns after me.”

That look in his eyes deflates, and his body withdraws. He abandons his half-eaten burger and throws it in the bag. “I don’t need your help with finding a date.”

“Correction. You don’t need my help with getting laid. What you do need is my help with finding a girlfriend.”

He puts an arm on the window behind us, leaning into me, and rests his other on his knee, which is now bent. His pointer finger is tracing circles around his thumb. “All right, I’ll bite. What kind of girl do I need?”

His broad chest is simmering heat into my shoulder. I swallow hard and try to dismiss how it feels to be caged in by him, my soft body enclosed by his hard one.

“Well, she’s smart. Educated. You don’t have time for incompetence. And she’s sweet. You see so much ugliness on the job that you need someone who sees what’s beautiful in the world. She’s kind and giving. Funny but not so much that she can’t relax. And she’s sexy but not in a show-off way. She conceals it, not showing others what she reserves for you in private. Because, let’s face it, you would not be the type to tolerate other men looking at what’s yours.”

I turn just slightly into him and get caught in the sight of his mouth and how his lower lip is lush and plump, so much so that I want to suck on it. His tongue slowly skims the inside of that full lip, and my skin ignites with electricity, the blood pulsating down my body. There’s a humming that is felt straight down to my core, and it accelerates with intensity, rushing down the runway. Faster. Stronger. Louder.

A plane takes off, flying directly overhead, causing us to blink and pull back. My hair is swaying in the wind.

I turn away and look straight into the night, the airport, the runway, and the Do Not Enter signs. I run my hand over the ridges on the black-coated floor of the trunk, feeling the heated surface and letting it radiate up my palm.

I blow out through my lips and run a hand over the top of my hair and down my ponytail. “So, yeah, I can totally set you up with someone.”

Adam is now sitting with his legs bent and his arms resting on his knees. He smiles and shakes his head. With a squint of his eyes, he asks, “What about you? You seeing anyone?”

“I am already in a committed relationship.”