found a corner. “I used to do puzzles with my mom. Especially once she got sick.”
“I’m so sorry.” The last thing she’d wanted to do coming here was to make Patrick upset. She felt enough guilt at the idea of seeking him out, even though she had a sneaking suspicion that her crush on him was returned. That alone had the potential of being life-ruining. He didn’t need her to remind him of his dead mom.
But he made eye contact with her then. “It’s okay. It’s a good memory. Thank you for reminding me.”
Sasha wouldn’t examine the way his genuine smile warmed her to her toes and made her willing to do anything to experience it again.
CHAPTER SIX
THE GOOD NEWS WAS that Sasha had stared long enough at Nathan during their third date that she didn’t think he would ask her out again. The bad news is that she would probably be the subject of a Reddit post before the end of the night. The humiliation of going viral, even if it was anonymous, would probably make it so she couldn’t leave her house again.
Now that Hannah was at about half capacity because of morning sickness, her only source of pleasure was “Am I the asshole?” posts. Hannah would definitely recognize her in one of those and put her on blast.
It’s not like she had tried to seem like a total freak on her date. Going in, she’d only intended to try her hardest to grow an attraction to the man sitting in front of her instead of the man she couldn’t stop thinking about. She knew how bad she wanted Patrick to forget about his vows wasn’t healthy. It was probably pathological. She always wanted what she couldn’t have. For her, wanting something was better than having it.
Patrick might believe that she was special. Then again, his words might have been platitudes the other day. Maybe he could see that she was doe-eyed and smitten every time she laid eyes on him and wanted to pat her on the head and push her away.
That was probably it. If she truly deserved someone who saw her as special, she would have performed better on her date. Instead of squinting her eyes and trying to conjure a single, solitary dirty fantasy about the man across from her, she might have spent more time asking about his hobbies. According to Moira, this was much less gauche than asking about stock portfolios and investments directly—but no one with a serious skiing habit was lacking in funds.
At least that was the theory.
But no. She’d tried to imagine Nathan pushing her to the ground and pressing his body into hers. And then she tried to imagine him pinning her arms above her head against a wall and sticking his hand down her panties.
She couldn’t.
Multiple times over the course of their very nice, expensive dinner, Nathan had asked her what she was thinking. And each time she’d turned red and said, “Nothing.”
He probably thought she was completely daft or not into him.
The latter was definitely true, and she couldn’t stop beating herself up over it.
Nathan hadn’t had much to drink over dinner—just one beer. Sasha had three glasses of champagne in order to get herself in the mood. He’d probably thought she was drunk, which was probably why he didn’t even kiss her at the door.
The good news was that he wasn’t going to ask her out again. The bad news was that she wouldn’t have anything to distract her from fantasizing about Patrick. But it wasn’t fair to Nathan, and she knew that.
Still, the same part of her that had thrilled to Patrick’s reaction to someone almost mowing them down in the parking lot wanted to witness how he would react to seeing her with a man who wasn’t prevented from fucking her by sacrament.
If he’d just been placating her with the words that were quickly forming a tattoo on her soul, then he might not even react. He’d be friendly, avuncular even.
But if his reaction to the teen driver was an indication of more complicated feelings about her, then she could imagine his nostrils flaring like an angry bull’s when she introduced Nathan at the bake sale.
She didn’t want to use Nathan. But she also kind of did. That’s why she’d felt so dirty after their date that she’d taken a shower before wrapping herself in a towel and rubbing in all of her lotions. Self-care was important, after all.
It was why she had