Page 102 of Smooth Sailing

That chest was shaking, and so was his voice when he said, “That’s my girl. Don’t leave a job half-finished.”

I couldn’t believe it, considering the subject matter, but I was laughing too.

And it felt nice he called me “my girl,” not to mention he was touching me.

He one-upped his own self when he pulled me onto the couch, curling me into his arms and holding me close.

“You been through a lot this morning too,” he remarked.

I loved he understood that.

Still.

“Really, I’m okay.”

I snuggled deeper anyway, because if my chances at this kind of time with Hugger were going to be limited, I was going to take full advantage of them when I had them.

“You don’t always gotta be going hell bent for leather to take care of everyone, Di,” he stated. “You can take some time for yourself too.”

“Well, we need to talk about that, because not only does Dad want me to come over for dinner on Wednesday, he’s invited you too, and warning, this is so he can size you up, judge you and find you lacking.”

Hugger did a masculine eye roll at that, and if you don’t know what that is, it’s mostly a side-eye, but his eyeballs were aimed upward too.

It was kinda funny and kinda hot.

I didn’t have time for either. I had to smack him with the fullness of honesty about Dad.

“I will share, this will be about you being a biker. But it wouldn’t matter if you weren’t, he wouldn’t like you. He never liked any of my boyfriends.”

“Dads have a knack for bein’ like that,” he said. “Don’t know if I’ll win him over. Do know, I don’t care if I do. The only person who’s gotta like me is you.”

I’d been resting my head on his shoulder, but I lifted it to look at him.

“You’re going?”

“Yeah, because I don’t want you alone with your dad this first visit when he’s been a dick to you in the past.”

Man, he was just so sweet.

“And yeah, because I wanna make sure you’re safe in other ways too,” he concluded.

Totally another pro for Hugger.

All the same.

“I don’t really want to eat dinner with Dad being a dick to you.”

“I got tough skin, Di. Don’t worry about me.”

I wanted to know more about why he had to have tough skin, but I didn’t get into that. We were getting to know each other, but we didn’t have to do it all in one day.

“My friend Bernie also wants me to go out to cocktails on Friday.”

“We can arrange that too.”

“Would you like to come to that?”

His lips tipped up and he replied, “Not a cocktail guy, babe.”

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