Page 21 of In Love with a Ranger

“Exactly.”

“Well, phooey,” she muttered, and he smiled at the word. Who said ‘phooey’ anyhow? “This is not going to work then.”

“Sure it will. You take the bed, and there’s nobody in your way – and I’ll take the recliner.”

“But what if you don’t sleep well?”

“Are you ready to get married?” – and both of them started immediately the second the words were out of his mouth. He hadn’t meant to blurt that out, but it kinda just fell right out of him. There was no unsaying it now, and frankly, being married opened them up to another host of issues.

He didn’t think Christina’s eyes could get any larger, but she stood there gawking at him like he had some horrible, nightmarish monster standing behind him – and turned to peek, just in case. Nope. He’d just shocked the heck out of her by that simple statement.

“I mean, we’d still be friends…”

“Of c-course,” she stammered.

“And we could keep things platonic.”

“We would?”

“You wouldn’t want to?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I mean, if we did get married…”

“We could always get un-married later…”

“Un-married? You mean divorced?”

“Yes.”

“You’d divorce me?”

“We’re not married, so this is hypothetical.”

“We were just talking about sleeping arrangements and…”

“And you lobbed a nuclear warhead in the middle of the conversation!” she blurted out, looking flabbergasted. “You don’t just say things like that.”

“It’s not a warhead, but more like a water balloon.”

“Oh, please.”

“What? Would it be so terrible?”

“It would ruin our friendship.”

“That just started…”

“It would end it.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because married people do… things.”

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