Page 26 of The Problem with Perfect

I want to tell him I’m not so sure and maybe I just wasn’t enough, but instead, I give him a small smile and nod then slip out of his car. We approach the front door, and once he knocks, Rusty slips his hand in mine and gives me one more gentle squeeze. A shiver runs up my arm and down my spine, and when I look to Rusty, I find him watching me with a curious expression on his face. His lips part like he has something to say, but before he can say it, the door opens.

“Hey, guys.” Connor grins. “Glad you could make it.”

Rusty offers his hand and the two shake.

“Come on in, let’s get you two a drink, huh?”

We follow Connor through his entry and into the kitchen, where Stace is slicing tomatoes at the island. She beams and rounds the counter, wrapping me up in a hug I’m not expecting. My eyes connect with Rusty’s, and he looks just as surprised as I do.

“I’m so glad you’re both here! I’ve been dying to get to know some of Connor’s friends from home.” Stace pulls back and looks at me. “Gosh, you are so pretty.” Then she looks at Rusty and Connor. “Isn’t she pretty?”

Connor nods, but he looks a little uncomfortable.

“She’s stunning.”

My eyes flick to Rusty’s, the sound of him speaking those words sparking something in my chest.

“Ooooh,” Stace croons, giggling. “A man who tells it like he sees it.” She winks at Rusty and moves back to the island to continue cutting her tomatoes. “So, how did you two meet?”

“They’ve known each other for a long time,” Connor interjects, tugging a few beers from the fridge. “Though Iamcurious about how you started dating because I’m sure that’s a wild story.”

He sets the bottles on the counter then starts popping the tops off, one after another.

Suddenly, I’m hyperaware of Rusty behind me, the warm wall of his body pressed up against mine and his hands coming up to gently rub up and down on my biceps.

“Not wild, really,” he says. “I’m sure you know we’re expanding Cedar Cider.”

Connor nods. “To that spot off Main?”

“Yeah, and Bellamy has been helping with some financials. Things are getting a lot more complicated, and with all the extra numbers, we thought we’d bring in someone who knows what they’re doing. We ended up spending a lot of time together and I just…started falling for her, you know?” His arms wrap fully around me, and his head dips down so his mouth is right by my ear. “I mean, how could you not?” he says, his voice soft, almost like what he just said is only for me.

It sends something delicious skittering underneath my skin, and I can’t help the way I lean back into him, allowing the solid strength of him to hold me. My eyes rise to find Stace watching us with a smile but then connect with Connor’s; he’s watching us in a way that’s more assessing than I would have expected.

“I guess Bellamy helping people with math is kind of her thing,” he says. “I mean, it’s all thanks to her tutoring me last summer that I passed my business accounting class in the fall.”

I feel Rusty tense just briefly behind me, but he drops a kiss to the crown of my head.

“That’s my girl. Smartest woman I know.”

Stace is leaning forward on the island, her tomatoes forgotten as she watches Rusty with a gaze that is a little too dreamy for my liking.

“I’ll take a beer, if you’re offering.”

Connor seems to snap out of whatever little funk he’s in and passes one of the open bottles to Rusty, then one to me.

“How about you two?” I ask, not really wanting the answer but also desperate to know at the same time. “How did you two meet?”

“Oh Connor and I go way back, too,” Stace says, finally finishing up with her tomatoes and moving on to slicing onions. “We lived down the hall from each other freshman year.”

My stomach turns over, and my eyes shift to Connor’s, wanting to light him on fire where he stands. Did he turn me into a woman who sleeps with a taken man?

“But we didn’t really connect until we saw each other again at a party at Connor’s fraternity in the fall.”

I feel my shoulders sag, the weight of regret falling by the wayside and leaving me with an overwhelming relief.

But then I realize that still means Connor returned home two times over the course of the school year—once for Thanksgiving, once for his mother’s birthday—and never said a thing about this relationship. He still visited me at work. Flirted with me. Tucked my hair behind my ear like he wasn’t dating someone else.

“I think we just knew it was different than when we met freshman year, you know?” Stace continues. “When you’re young, you think you know so much about love and the world, but when you get a little older you have so much more knowledge about how things work.” She turns and looks at Connor. “We had both grown into different people, more in tune with ourselves and what we wanted…more honest about life in general.” She pauses. “Sorry, I totally dominated that. Con, why don’t you tell it from your perspective.”

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