Page 100 of Smooth Sailing

“I feel…safe when they’re here. And things seem normal.”

So she felt the same as me.

Her head jerked. “Not that I didn’t feel safe when it was just us two.”

I laughed. “Gotta say, babe, I feel a lot safer with a bunch of bikers stomping around in their motorcycle boots too.”

That bought me a kinda smile, I returned it with a not-kinda smile.

“Can we have pizza?” she asked.

“We can have whatever you want. What’s your favorite kind?”

“Pepperoni.”

“You want homemade, or someone else to make it for us and deliver it?”

“I like cooking with you.”

I was going to have to send Big Petey to the store again.

I didn’t figure he’d mind.

“I’ll get on that. You get on dozing.”

“Okay, Di.”

I smiled at her again and left her room.

When I got to the living room, Hugger pulled his big, tall frame out of the couch.

I liked that frame. I liked the intent look in his brown eyes as they watched me walk into the room, as if he could check the state of my mental health through vision. I liked the wild of his hair and the wild of his beard.

Okay, official, I just liked him.

I went to him and was about to hug him when I remembered he said he wasn’t affectionate and didn’t like touch.

I hadn’t had the time to turn that over in my head, especially because, since yesterday at the tennis courts, he’d been touching me a lot. But now that I was turning it over in my head, it didn’t make me happy.

I’d never thought about that when it came to me, and I guessed I wasn’t touchy either. At least not over the top.

But I did like physical touch with my guy when I had one, and not just the sexual kind. And I couldn’t say I shied away from it with other people, I just wasn’t overly demonstrative.

But if Hugger didn’t like it, then I’d have to deal with it.

Somehow.

So I just got close and shared, “She’s not ready to talk to her parents. She wants to rest after letting out all that emotion, and I don’t blame her. She also wants the guys to come over for pepperoni pizza tonight.”

“She wants the guys to come over?” Hugger asked, not hiding his surprise.

“She says she feels safer around them.”

His lips in his beard thinned before he said, “Probably shouldn’t be surprised about that.”

“And she likes that life feels ‘normal’ when they’re around.”

“Then I’ll make a call and get their asses here,” Hugger stated.

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