Page 95 of Fierce-Hyde

“I did too, but then she told me Dan was ten years younger than her. He pays for everything, and in her mind, this is the trade-off. But her lease is up soon and she hates her place. I’ve gotten that much out of her emails lately. She suggested she move in with him.”

“After a month?” he asked.

As much as he loved Tori, there was no way he’d move in with her after a month. Not even a few months. He wasn’t so sure they might not fight again on stupid things like who left the top off the toothpaste.

Not that they fought much anymore, but he didn’t want to risk it either.

A few nights a week and taking it slow was working for him.

He hadn’t even lived with Shana and they dated for almost two years. They’d just started to talk about moving in together.

“I know,” she said. “So he gets cold feet. I think he’s just using her and my mother never sees that. But she brought that up yesterday morning and he comes over after work and says that she’s moving too fast and they need to slow down. She wasn’tsure what that meant and asked when she’d talk to him again. He said a few days.”

“Okay,” he said. “Not so horrible. Giving them each time to think things through.”

“That’s you and me because we are logical.”

He laughed. “Have we always been logical?”

“No,” she said. “Which I get now why you laughed. But my mother isneverlogical. To her, what she did last night after he left from gathering his things after work, was check out his online dating profile. Did I mention that is how they met?”

“No,” he said, smirking. “Let me guess. He’s active again? Or did he never take it down?”

“He was inactive while dating her but then within an hour of leaving her place, he was active and marked single. So yeah, he blew her off and didn’t even have the guts to tell her that.”

“Sounds it to me,” he said. “And you had to be an ear for her or is she asking to move here again?”

“No,” she said. “She was going on about not having money because he led her to believe that they’d be living together and to her that meant he’d be paying the bills.”

“Was that an actual conversation or an assumption?” he asked.

“No clue,” she said. “I didn’t ask because to me it’d only bring up more things I didn’t have time to listen to. It doesn’t matter. He’s on the market now looking for his next target in mind.”

“Does she always end up in situations like this?” he asked.

“Pretty much. Then she said she called in sick and I warned her not to do that too much. She doesn’t need to get fired.”

He couldn’t imagine micromanaging a kid like this let alone a full-grown adult in another state.

“What did she say?” he asked.

“She said she wouldn’t. But she’s venting a lot on her job again too. I’m trying to ignore it. I’ve got her bills set up forautopay. Not much I can do and I’m not floating her money I won’t get back. I’m positive she put that out there to see if I’d do it and when I don’t offer, she’ll figure it out.”

He was glad to know there was some limit to this.

But he wasn’t stupid enough to voice that either.

It wasn’t his business if she gave her mother money to help support her.

“Was there more to it than this?” he asked.

Tori seemed as if she was hedging.

“She said something that bothered me.”

“What’s that?” he asked. “My family always says things that bother me and I just move past it.”

“Your family isn’t like mine. Trust me. When I commented on being surprised that she was going to move in with someone after a month, she said I don’t get it. That I never date and when you find someone you like you want to be with them all the time.”

---