But to do that, she had to pull back a little. It was far, far too easy to want to be close to Grant, in every way, and if she didn’t watch it, she was going to not just get her heart broken, but she was going to end up embarrassing herself.
Not having sex with him was very helpful in not becoming even more attached to him. The sex was awesome, and not that it was a huge surprise, but it made it hard for her to separate her heart from her head.
“Wow.”
Josie tuned back into her friends, realizing she’d been quiet and lost in thought for too long. She’d stirred the hell out of the apple cinnamon muffin batter.
“You don’t even have words for it?” Zoe asked. She was leaning on the island watching Josie carefully.
“I think that’s a fair assessment,” Josie agreed.
“You’re so quiet,” Jane said. “You’re never this quiet about romance and relationships.”
That was true. But the romance and relationships were almost never hers. She’d had a thing going with Dallas Ryan, a local farmer, for a little while. Dallas was hot. And sweet. And sexy. And she’d thought maybe something could come of that. She’d been feeling butterflies in the stomach about Dallas and had gushed a little to Jane and Zoe about him.
But it had fizzled after a while. They’d only had sex once and it had been great. But it hadn’t been Grant great. Now she and Dallas were good friends. He’d flirt with her when he came into the bakery, but he never asked her out and she never expected him to.
He just wasn’t her one.
Grant isn’t your one either, she told herself firmly.
She just really wished that he felt less like he could maybe, possibly, be her one. If he felt completely differently about things like marriage and family and relationships in general.
“I think I’m just tired,” Josie hedged. She had, after all, just had surgery. Not that Zoe and Jane knew that—or would know that. Ever if Josie could help it.
“So is he staying with you right now?” Jane asked.
“How did you know that?” Josie asked. They had just gotten back into town a couple of hours ago.
“Dax mentioned it when I said they should go out for beers,” Jane said. “He said it was a lot more fun when everyone was crashing in Appleby and didn’t have to worry about driving home.”
“Yeah, but Cam is crashing at our place,” Zoe said.
“Oh, poor baby, you have to be quiet having sex instead of doing it on the kitchen table and yelling about it,” Jane teased.
“Look who’s talking,” Zoe said. “I know about the Ping-Pong table in the Hot Cakes break room.”
Jane froze and looked up at her. “What? Who told you about that?”
Zoe laughed. “No one. But I assumed you had done it on that table at some point and you just confirmed it.”
Jane narrowed her eyes but nodded. “Well done.”
Josie swallowed. She shouldn’t be jealous of her friends. For one thing, she was so, so happy for them. She was thrilled they both had men they loved who loved them fiercely.
But she wanted that with Grant. She wanted to know he’d be there at the end of the day, whatever time that finally ended up being, because he wanted to be there, rather than because they were, essentially, pulling off a con. Conning their friends into thinking they were having a hot affair. Conning an insurance company into thinking they were married. Except they were married. And they were having a hot affair.
She supposed they were only conning themselves. Conning themselves into thinking that this wasn’t a big deal. When it was feeling like a really big, messy, complicated, she-never-wanted-it-to-end deal.
“So Grant’s staying with you,” Jane said. “And you had a great time in Chicago.”
“Yeah.” Josie shrugged.
Jane and Zoe exchanged a look, and then Jane shook her head and set her wineglass down to cross her arms. “Nope. What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” But Josie could feel that she was on the verge of telling them everything. She wasn’t a secretive person. She loved having friends and family that were involved in her life. She was already keeping the side-baking away from Zoe and that made her feel bad enough. She’d also recently realized that she was keeping her feelings about the bakery and wanting to be more involved from her friend. She did not want to have another secret.