Page 24 of Choosing You

“Hey, I’m usually swimming at my parents’ house with my family—including three older brothers,” she added quickly, “so…yeah. It would be weird to wear a bikini around them.” She shuddered dramatically.

He nodded. “That’s fair, but…we wouldn’t even have to go swimming! Just you and me—alone—and a bikini fashion show. You know, just to prove that you totallycouldmodel one.”

Sloane shook her head again. “I’m not discussing this with you anymore,” she said with a laugh. “Now, tell me something about you. I told you about how I’m not opposed to eating. Now it’s your turn.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say that he had no aversions to eating either, but he figured she was looking for something a little more solid than that. “Well…I think I mentioned this earlier, I’m a mechanic. And even though I do it for a living, I tend to work on cars as a hobby too.”

Maybe he was imagining things, but he noticed that Sloane’s shoulders sagged just a bit. Rather than mention it, he went on. “Besides my truck, I have two other cars that I own that I’m restoring in my spare time.” Unable to help himself, he talked about all the ways he had restored some of his older cars and what he was hoping to do with the Chevy that was sitting in his garage. Just talking about it gave him a thrill.

“Oh,” she said, her voice slightly stilted. “That sounds interesting.” She wasn’t even really looking at him.

And then it hit him. “Not a car enthusiast, huh?”

Her nose wrinkled a bit as she shook her head. “Sorry.”

“For what? It’s something that I enjoy, but I don’t force it on others,” he said lightly. “Or at least I try not to. Being that it’s my job, sometimes whether I want to talk about it or not, people come to me and talk about it.” He shrugged. “Goes with the territory. But…I also enjoy going to classic car shows whenever one comes around.”

“My dad enjoys going to them too. He and my brothers go whenever one comes to town. I never saw the appeal, but…that’s just me.”

“What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? Like…what do you do on the weekends when you’re not here visiting your family?”

Sadly, she didn’t take the bait and mention them.

“Typical weekends lately have been boring. So many of my friends are married and have babies, and I’m still single. I tend to take those two days to do boring stuff like pay bills, do laundry, buy groceries…but every Sunday I have dinner at my parents’ house with everyone.” She sighed. “But occasionally, there’s a girls’ night and we go out to eat and either go dancing or to a movie or find something silly to do.”

“Like what?” he asked, totally curious.

“Hmm…last month we went to this wine and design kind of thing where you paint and…”

“Drink wine?”

“Exactly! It was awesome and my beach scene came out amazing and is hanging up in my living room!” she said proudly. “Then there was the time we all went to this float spa. We were all in separate rooms—which kind of sucked—but afterwards, we sat at the oxygen bar and then went out for Korean barbecue. I was so relaxed and I kind of wished we could have gotten takeout and eaten in our pajamas.”

“Wait…go back a minute. What is a float spa?”

“Oh, it’s a sensory deprivation sort of thing where you float in these pods that have, like, ten inches of water and a ton of Epsom salt, so you float.”

“Really? That’s a thing?”

She nodded. “It is, and it’s glorious! Oh my God…I have a membership and go float at least once a month. Sometimes twice.”

“That just sounds bizarre. How long do you float for?”

“An hour.”

“And what do you do while you float?”

“Nothing. You let your mind go blank and it’s just…I can’t explain it, but you just feel so refreshed when you leave. You should totally try it!”

“Um…I don’t think so,” he admitted. “That doesn’t even sound a little bit appealing.”

They were saved from making any more conversation as their food arrived. They each thanked the server and dug in wordlessly. While Will enjoyed his food—the burger was one of the best he’d ever tasted—he could tell that things had taken a turn toward the negative after he talked about cars and she talked about floating.

There was a definite physical attraction, but now that they were talking more about themselves, it seemed like they didn’t have a lot in common.

Actually, they both seemed to have strong feelings about each other’s hobbies.

Strong negative feelings.

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