Page 103 of Smooth Sailing

No surprise.

“And feel it’d be more of a trial by fire to pitch up with your friends than with your dad.”

He was right about that.

My friends weren’t judgy, but we didn’t accept just any pretty face when it came to who we were dating.

“They know about Madison?” Hugger asked.

“No.”

“They know about you?” he asked more gently.

“Yeah.”

“You wanna tell me why you didn’t tell them about Madison?”

“Because I didn’t want them to talk me out of doing something totally insane.”

He chuckled, and it sounded and felt nice.

“So I can say yes to Dad and Bernie,” I summed up.

“Yeah.”

“And now I need to make another list. So I need to know what your favorite pizza is.”

He answered readily. “Not a fan of soggy onions, and if there’s a pizza in this house with pineapple on it, I’ll throw it over your balcony.”

I started laughing.

Through my laughter, he went on, “Other than that, I’ll eat anything. But if I was ordering just for myself, it’d be sausage and mushroom.”

“So pepperoni for Madison and sausage and mushroom for you.”

He gave me a squeeze. “And what about you?”

“What’s my favorite pizza?”

“Yeah, I wanna know that. But I also want you putting your favorites on the list. Gonna repeat, it isn’t all about everyone else all the time.”

“I fear you might be getting the wrong idea about me, my man.”

Me saying “my man” got me another squeeze, even if I didn’t mean it that way.

I liked what that squeeze meant, though.

“I’m not always this selfless,” I warned him.

“We’ll see,” he muttered.

“I’m really not,” I stressed.

“Okay, I believe you,” he openly lied.

I smiled at him.

His eyes dropped to my mouth and I saw up close how they heated.

---