Page 48 of The Rogue

“You’re uncomfortable with it,” Arizona pressed.

“I’m not uncomfortable. Just like for things to be a certain way. I like for us to have a date beforehand, I like to feel like we have a connection. That we’re on the same page. And I like for the lights to be dim, and I like to make sure that I’m feeling good about myself.”

“You want to control the whole thing,” Fia said.

“Yes.”

“Have you ever had spontaneous sex?” Arizona asked.

Rue felt like a light had been shone onto her soul. “We didn’t always put it on the planner.”

A cracker dropped out of Bix’s mouth. “You put it on a plannersometimes?”

“He was deployed a lot, and then when he came back he was tired, and we were both busy, so it just made the most sense to sometimes make sure that it was in the planner.”

“Oh dear,” said Fia. “There’s nothing wrong with that. But just so I’m clear to you spontaneous sex is sex you didn’t write in a planner.”

“Well, yes.”

“So no joining him in the shower and jumping him,” Arizona said.

“Well, no.”

“No watching a movie together and ending up on the floor?” Fia asked.

“No...”

“No banging in an abandoned cabin near where your illegal moonshine still used to be?”

Everybody looked at Bix. She shrugged.

“He didn’t act like he wanted that either. He acted like he liked things organized and put together and reasonable. He didn’t act like he was missing something else. It seemed like things were fine. I never wanted things to be scary or out of control. I never wanted it to feel like a runaway train. There was a rhythm that worked for me, and he made it seem like it worked for him too.”

“You don’t need to be defensive,” Fia said. “I’m not trying to blame you. Far from it. If he had an issue he should’ve said something to you. He owed you better than that.”

“You know,” Arizona said thoughtfully, “I would say that the real issue is you didn’t trust him.”

“I didn’t trust him? I was with him for eight years. I was going to marry him.”

“Yeah,” Arizona said, waving her hand. “I get all that. But you had to keep such tight control on yourself because of all of the trauma you had in your life around the subject, but you would think that the right guy would help you let go. Would make you want to.”

“This isn’t about him and what he wanted,” Bixsaid. “Because he never asked you for anything. He just went off and did his own thing. This is about what you want now. Because you’re right. You’re not moving into your motherhood phase. So maybe you should move into your hoochie-mama phase.”

Fia nodded sagely. “I didn’t do this myself, but I have heard that it is very helpful for some to have a ho phase.”

“Awhat?” Rue asked.

“It’s a phase wherein you ho around a little. After dedicating many good years of your life to a man who didn’t deserve your loyalty, it seems like a pretty fair reward.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said. But she was thinking about her determination to go down to Smokey’s.

You need to trust him...

The only person who came to mind that she trusted wholly was Justice. And thinking of him in that context made her want to run screaming out the door into the night. She couldn’t stop seeing him like she had earlier that day. Standing on the edge of the cliffside looking rugged and masculine and like every fantasy that any sane woman would have.

She was used to her best friend being beautiful. What she was not used to was having thoughts about that beauty that made her stomach get tight.

Well, not since she was more than a hormonal, emotional teenage girl who couldn’t control much of anything.

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