Page 65 of The One I Love
I smile, but don’t look at him, doing my best to push down the feelings of unwanted jealousy. I dig into the ice cream for afew minutes, using it as the distraction I need to get my head right.
“Hey,” he says as he takes my hand. “Everything okay?”
I quickly nod and give my head a little shake. “Yup.”
He tilts his head, clearly not believing me. “Ask.”
“What?”
“Ask,” he says right before taking a bite of his ice cream.
“Ask what?”
“Is this how we’re going to play this?”
I let out a breath. “I don’t want to come across like a crazy girlfriend.”
He shakes his head. “Not crazy. Believe me, if I saw you talking to a man I didn’t know, I wouldn’t have stayed sitting the whole time.”
“Fair enough,” I say as I picture Shane going caveman again. “What’s her name?”
“Katie.”
“And I take you know Katie?”
“I do.”
“Biblically?”
“I do. Though I don’t know anyone who uses that phrase anymore.”
“Don’t tease, Cunningham. I’m being serious.”
He smiles as he slides his half-eaten banana split to the side. “I know you are. Do you remember when I once said that I have a story and you’d hear about it at some point?”
“Yeah.”
“Ready for it?”
I look down at my melting ice cream sundae. I want to know. I need to know. Shane knows so much about me, from the little things to the huge things. I know a lot about Shane, but there are still parts of him that are a mystery. And if he’sgoing to trust me to tell me these parts of him, then I’m going to push down every insecure feeling I have and let him.
“Lay it on me.”
He smiles as he takes both of my hands in his. “Katie was a woman that I regularly saw, but we never officially dated. She lives around here, and there’s a bar a few miles away I used to frequent.”
“You were cheating on The Joint?”
“It wasn’t like that,” he says. “The Joint is good for when I want to have beers with you and the guys. Or if my brother stumbles into town. But I’d come out here when…”
“When you needed laid.”
“For lack of better words,” he says. “I wanted to always keep my private life private. I didn’t need the drama of hooking up with someone in Rolling Hills. So I came out here. I always stayed at the woman’s house. I never brought them to mine. I came out here when I felt like it.”
“Was it always one-night stands?”
“Not always. Mostly, but in the case of Katie, we saw each other regularly.”
“But you didn’t date?”
