Page 129 of Smooth Sailing

She switched brushes, grabbed a long, narrow box off the counter, flipped it open to expose a bunch of eyeshadows that were a bunch of colors in the same shade, and went at it again.

“They got engaged,” she continued. “A month before the wedding, he found her schtupping the guy she dumped to be with him, because, yes, when they were texting and sexting, she was with someone too. They were doing it in the bed he shared with her. The wedding wasn’t called off. She just married the other guy during it. My ex was so humiliated, he came back to Phoenix. He tried to start it up again with me, but that was definitely a no-go.”

Hugger was now leaning a hip against her bathroom counter, arms crossed on his chest, watching her put on makeup and listening.

“Wild story, babe. But sounds like you dodged a drama bullet.”

“Yep,” she agreed. Then, all Diana what seemed to be all the time, she kept giving it. “The other guy, well, we just weren’t meant for each other. It was crazy, but we both kinda figured out we were going through the motions at the same time. He asked if we could have a quiet night ‘to chat’ the same day I was going to go home and ask him to have a ‘chat.’”

She shrugged and switched up makeup shit.

And she kept talking.

“We’re still friends, mostly. I mean, if I ran into him, we’d be nice to each other. We don’t hang out or anything.”

“Right,” he muttered.

“You?” she asked the mirror.

“What?”

She turned to him. “Have you ever lived with anybody?”

“My ma. A coupla roommates. No woman,” he shared, feeling some discomfort in doing it.

Her brows drifted up. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-five. And just so you know, never had a woman in my life for more than a coupla months either.”

Now she was staring at him. “Really?”

He nodded.

“You’re sweet. You’re protective. You’re insanely hot. You bring a girl coffee. So the question must be asked, why on earth not?”

It felt good, all those things she said about him.

Damn good.

But that was an excellent question.

The one who he had, Mandy, was solid. Great smile. Good in bed. Had her shit together.

Though, if it had lasted with Mandy, he wouldn’t have a shot with Diana, so he was glad it didn’t.

“Harlan?” Diana called.

He focused on her and said quietly, “Think that’s part of the shit I didn’t want to lay on you, baby. And we gotta talk about that, because, now we’re without any distractions, we gotta figure out what this is and how hard we wanna fight for it.”

“I think I already know how hard I wanna fight for it,” she declared.

Now he felt even more uncomfortable.

“Babe—”

She shook her head and turned to the mirror, interrupting him. “This isn’t a conversation for now. Let’s have a normal day, the dinner with Dad notwithstanding. We can make a date to talk about serious stuff later. I’m thinking Saturday. No, we should have a fun day Saturday. Let’s do it Sunday.”

Hugger felt his lips curl up. “Right. So we got a date to do that Sunday, four days from now when we’re essentially livin’ together and I’ll be going to work with you, so we got all sorts of time to talk.”

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