Page 29 of Something Borrowed, Something You

“Really? So how many women have you dated in, say, the last month?”

He thought about it for a minute. “Three.”

“Hmph. That’s not so bad, I guess.” I sipped my drink again and squinted at him. “Unless you slept with all of them. Sleeping with three different women a month would be thirty-six a year… after ten years of singlehood that would be upward of three hundred and sixty different women. That’s kinda gross.”

Hunter frowned.

I smirked. “Slept with ’em all, huh?”

“I travel a lot for work. Sometimes I spend the better part of three months on a jobsite out of state, so I don’t always get to date that often.”

“So you don’t date when traveling? You’ve never met a woman at a bar while on the road and brought her back to your room?”

Another frown. “Did we or did we not meet when I overheard you deciding to bring some random—boring as shit, I might add—guy back to your room while you were traveling?”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“I have a good reason for not wanting anything more than sex from a man these days. Plus, I don’t do it very often.”

Hunter said nothing. He seemed to like to argue with me, so my guess was his sudden silence was because I’d hit upon something he didn’t want to talk about. Perhaps he had his own good reasons for not wanting anything but a sexual relationship with someone.

“So, tell me something about your love life, birthday-boy-who-isn’t-a-whore. I gave you the thirty-second version of my heartache this afternoon. What’s your deal?”

“Not much to tell.”

“Ever married?”

“Nope.”

“Engaged?”

“Nope.”

“Serious girlfriend.”

“One.”

I took another sip. “Now we’re getting somewhere. How long was that relationship?”

“A few years.”

Although that surprised me, it did make sense. I wanted no part of a relationship because of my sour outlook after my marriage. “Why did you break up?”

He shifted in his seat and looked away for the first time. “Life.”

“Ah. That tells me a lot.”

His eyes met mine again. “I prefer to live my life looking forward, not backward. You look in the rearview mirror too often, sometimes you miss what’s right in front of you.”

Huh. Not the answer I’d expected. But a damn good point.

The waitress came back to our table. Her timing was perfect for a change in the tone of our conversation. After she took our dinner order, and I finished off my large margarita, I shared something I’d been thinking about earlier as I was getting ready.

“My mom’s a big gardener. Growing up, she would plant a different flower on my birthday each year—one that would bloom around my spring birthday. Every year, we’d go outside to plant a new one, and all of my birthday plants would be in bloom. When I went away to college, she would snap pictures and send them in my card. It’s kind of goofy, but I loved it and looked forward to it each year. Yesterday, when you showed me your mom’s birthday birdhouses, it made me think maybe we could start some sort of a tradition for Caroline.”

Hunter sat back in his chair. “I’d like that. What did you have in mind?”

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