Page 95 of You've Got Male

“And you’d get five more years with the love of your life,” she said, and even though the words shouldn’t hurt, they slammed a door deep inside that she’d been slowly opening up.

“She went to one treatment, and it drained her. The regimen was four hours a day, three times a week, in addition to chemo. Saying it now, it sounds like an awful way to spend the rest of your life when you knew it would end anyway, but at the time I just felt like she was leaving me.”

Evie wondered if she were in the same position what she’d do.No,she thought,she wouldn’t have the luxury of opting out.In reality, Camila had but one parent and Evie would do whatever it took to be there for her daughter.

She wasn’t judging Amber. Everyone was affected by life-changing news differently and their reaction to it varied, but she felt for Amber’s family and what that kind of aftermath must have been like. Especially for a man who’d had so many people leave him behind.

Was Evie going to be one of those people when their time was up? Was he going to create a mental place setting for her in his life? Would she?

Unsure how to respond to such a vulnerable moment, she went up on her toes and gave him a gentle kiss that expressed all the sorrow and heartache she felt for him and his family. He must have understood the gesture, because his hands tightened and ran up her back to thread in her hair.

She couldn’t ever fully understand what he’d gone through, but she did understand how the loss of a parent could change a child’s outlook on the world and where they belonged in it. She saw the struggle in Camila daily.

“I thought I was parched,” Jonah said. “More like dehydrated for you.”

“I know the feeling.”

“Once wasn’t enough,” he said against the gentle slope of her neck.

“I believe it was three times.”

“Three hundred wouldn’t be enough,” he said and somethinginside her stilled. What they had between them was good. So good. Too good to be true.

Which meant she was going to enjoy every moment of it.

“Your car is bigger than my bed,” she said. “We could just take a little trip to the lookout over Denver.”

He pulled back with a wicked grin. “Sunshine, are you asking me to go to Make-Out Point?”

She took both of his hands and led him backward toward the driveway. “I was hoping we’d do more than make out.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Evie

Lenard was having a good day. So good, in fact, that he wanted to pull a shift at Grinder—which meant that Moira would run things while Lenard chatted up the customers. And so Evie had the full day to herself.

A day free of frizzy hair from the frother, intrusive loved ones wanting to know how her sex life was, and nosey customers wanting to take a ClickByte video with her. It also left her free to obsess over the past week.

And what a glorious week it had been.

Nearly every night after the lights went out at their respective houses they found a way to quench their ever-growing thirst. The more time she spent with him—in and out of clothes—the thirstier she became and not just for the sex-tacular benefits, but for their friendship and connection. It was nice to have someone to share her day with, to unpack the good and the bad.

It wasn’t just a one-way conversation, either. Jonah’s floodgate had been breached and he was more transparent and open withher than any man she’d ever been with. He was in touch with his emotions, mature in the things that mattered, and playful in the ways that counted.

Like just that morning, after Camila left for school, she’d found a note taped to her back door.

You and me, paint the town blue today?

(Clothes optional)

[ ] Yes

[ ] No

She’d checked yes immediately and taped it to his back door, gave a little tap and then raced back to her kitchen, where she was standing by the window like some teenager, waiting for the cute boy next door to write back.

Then he appeared, and a tingle started at the apex of her thighs, fizzing all the way up her stomach until she felt like a champagne bottle about to pop.

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