Page 92 of Best Laid Plans

Just then, our waiter arrived with a massive seafood platter, setting it down in the center of the table. The aroma was heavenly, and my stomach rumbled in anticipation. We dug in, the conversation flowing effortlessly as we savored the delicious meal.

The table had been cleared, and we were finishing up the last dregs of wine, when I found out what Anson was doing on a Friday night. I saw him when I walked to the restroom—he was at the bar with Dom.

"He's there everywhere," I muttered when I got back to our table.

Katya looked around, and whistled softly. "He's one gorgeous piece of man." This was the first time she was seeing him in the flesh. She had snooped online and told me he looked good in a suit on the Larue Homes website.

"Honey, I'm sitting right here," Trevor commented.

"I know, darlin'. I'm engaged, not blind or dead."

"Objectively speakin'…yeah, he's all that," I agreed. And he was. But even if he had one eye and was ugly as sin, I'd still love him, still want him. Beauty was subjective, after all—and the time we'd spent together all those years ago had shown me the man Anson could be. I understood well enough that he'd been manipulated as I had been. If I could believe Pete that Anson wanted me in a cell with Carre, then why shouldn't Anson believe Pete, who he'd known all his life, about my guilt?

But Anson had continued to make shitty choices. He laid out a plan to see if I could be corrupted again. He didn't go about framing me, that was Bailey—but she was his choice. He'd gotten engaged to her, for everything holy, and what did that say about him?

Who we decided to spend our lives with was a reflection on us, right? And it wasn't like he didn't know Bailey. He knew how she and Alma were the mean girls in high school—how they went to university to get a degree in MRS so they could become wives of rich men, and continue to be mean grown-up girls.

How could a man who wanted to marry Bailey want me? I was as different from her as could be. I wasn't all-white with a Mayflower pedigree. I was a career woman, who worked hard. I had a fucked up pedigree, even counting that I was Emmett Bodine's bastard child. I wouldn't say I didn't have a mean bone in my body, ‘cause I could be that if the moment demanded it, but it wasn't my resting stance like Bailey's and Alma's.

"You look deep in thought," Katya remarked, and then, with mischief in her eyes, said, "You thinkin' about sexy times?"

"She's my sister," Trevor protested, looking pained.

"No." I shook my head. "I'm…I know he wants us to start datin' again. I get that. But I don't get how a man who was engaged to Bailey is the same man who went on his knees and crawled for me."

Trevor emptied the bottle of wine into my glass. "Drink up, Sis, 'cause I'm gonna tell you some hard truths about men."

I sipped my wine and waited with a grin.

"One, we're dumb fucks who are sometimes led by our peckers."

I chuckled.

"That's not an exclusively male thing—I think it's a human thing. I dated a complete jerk in high school because…the big O," Katya stated.

"But I'm better, right?" Trevor teased.

He'd lived before he met Katya, and she'd walked the earth as well. Neither of them had come to each other simpering virgins, and they were grown up enough not to be jealous of each other's past.

"The best, baby cakes." She patted his cheek.

"Okay, so good sex trumps common sense. Check." I made a tick sign on the palm of my left hand with my right forefinger.

Trevor narrowed his eyes dramatically. "Now, the second one is complicated, so listen carefully."

I leaned closer, my ear turned toward him in an exaggerated gesture.

"Men don't like being in love."

"Huh?" Both Katya and I queried.

Trevor raised the palm of his hand, silently asking us to hold off until he explained himself. "Love makes us weak, even stupid. Men don't like that."

"Isn't that an over-generalization?" I mused.

"I don't ever generalize." Trevor winked at me. "Just sayin' that sometimes it's easy to be with someone you don't love so they can never hurt you, rather than being with someone who can. Look, based on what you tell me about his parents and sister, this guy has grown up in a transactional, what-will-people-think-of-me kind of world, which is all about appearances. He was probably already scared shitless to be in love with you, and then that asshole deputy sheriff gave him ample reason to walk away. Stupid, yes. Uncommon, hell no."

Both Katya and I nodded gravely. He made a point. One that said men were insecure overachievers, in general.

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