This wasn’t exactly a lie. Carl and I were close. I missed him. I wasn’t pining for him; I knew I’d made the right decision. But it wasn’t like we ended things six months ago. Our break was recent.
But it wasn’t just that.
I went on.
“And you’ve got the Ava thing.”
Now that was definitely not a lie.
His head cocked to the side, his eyes went guarded, and he asked, “The Ava thing?”
I wasn’t going to go there, but also, I didn’t want to take him there. Things were settled with Luke and Ava. They were all kinds of happy. Ren probably knew that and I shouldn’t remind him of it. In fact, I shouldn’t have said anything.
I moved us around that. “What I’m saying is, if you’re cool with it, I’m cool with this being casual.” I smiled at him. “In fact, I’d be way cool with that.”
He studied me a moment before he moved into me, getting close. He leaned around me to put his plate in the sink, straightened, caught my eyes again and stayed close.
He was talking as gently as I did when he replied, “Had women say that to me, honey, but they didn’t mean it.”
“I’m not like other women.”
His gaze moved over my face before locking on my lips and he murmured, “I’m sensing that.”
I didn’t know if that was good or bad, but I was taking it as good by the heat in his eyes.
“So if we continue to hook up, I’m down with casual. Yeah?” I pressed so I could get away from the heat of his eyes. And also, the heat of his body. Both were doing good things to my happy place, which would mean I might not get my take of the tip jar at Fortnum’s because, if I jumped him, I had a feeling I wouldn’t want to come up for air.
As answer, he said quietly, “I like you.”
Oh f**k.
There it was. My happy place got happy. My stomach dipped. But my heart squeezed.
“I like you too,” I stated in a defensive matter-of-fact way. “But I’m not ready—”
He cut me off. “No, Ally, what I’m sayin’ is, I like you. And if all you got in you right now is casual, I want more of you so I’ll give you that. But women say shit they don’t mean. I get that they do it to protect themselves and mean it when they say it. Then they get trapped in a place they created. This guy you had, you need time to get over that, I get you gotta take it. I’ll also give it to you. But if the casual we got shifts and you get stuck and don’t communicate with me the shift you want, which means I hurt you when I have no intention of doing that…” He took in a breath. “I like you and I don’t want that to happen. So I’ll take casual, honey. Just as long as, along the way, you’re straight with me. And in return, I’ll be straight with you.”
I could be straight.
Mostly.
I nodded and asked, “So, do we have a deal?”
He smiled.
My heart again squeezed.
Then he answered. “Yeah, baby. We got a deal.”
Chapter Three
Fucked Up As Love
Rock Chick Rewind
Two months later…
I was sitting in another bar; not like Club. This one was seedy and I didn’t like it.