stick to my theory of finding a man who shares my long-term goals, lifestyle, and approach to raising children.”
She ended on a bit of a bitter note, but it felt good. Yes, she had disclosed her abortion on her application with Sophia, but there was a bit of a difference between answering “one” to the question Number of abortions: on page five of a personality profile than actually telling the story. Okay, a huge difference. Rori hadn’t told anyone the story in years, and never a man.
Yet she’d just told Mike. And now that she had, she could confess to herself that she’d wanted to tell him. She wanted him to know—needed him to know so that he would do what needed to be done between them: create distance. A guy with Mike’s upbringing would be horrified at the idea of an abortion. Certainly no one in his family had had one. His sister had been a twenty-four year old virgin, for crying out loud.
After tonight Mike would never be able to look at her the same, and Rori just had to find a way not to resent him for that.
“You were right,” he said at length, confusing her.
“Of course I was.” She hesitated then. “About what?”
“Your approach to finding a husband does make sense for you. Your trust has been broken on so many levels, and you want to shield your future children from the same fate as much as you can. I get it now.”
Rori’s mouth fell open, mute. He was agreeing with her? Was he high?
“Well, I probably don’t get it get it. But I guess I probably understand as well as a guy can, even as part of me wants to hunt this Lorenz guy down and beat the shit out of him. And your mom, too—no offense. But there really aren’t words for how horribly she handled everything. You should have been the one to make the decision, one way or the other. That she just jumped in there and…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, which had Rori’s heart racing and her eyes tearing up for some reason.
“She acted in my best interest,” Rori justified.
“If you say so,” he snapped. “But forgive me if I choose to believe that she was really only thinking about herself and what she wanted.”
“Looking back—”
“No, I get it,” he said. “You’ve forgiven her. I’m sure I’ll get to a place where I don’t think she’s a horrible person, but in the meantime, thank you.”
“Thank you? For what?”
“For trusting me enough to tell me this,” he said, his voice sounding impossibly gentle. “I could tell it wasn’t easy for you.”
No, no, NO! This was not supposed to be his reaction. He was not supposed to be sweet about all this. He was supposed to freak! He was supposed to push away. He was supposed to see how fundamentally different they were and withdraw.
“People are never quite as simple as we think, are they?” he asked.
Rori fought back a laugh. “I guess not. You got any dark secrets you’re hiding away, Mr. Perfect?”
“Maybe another day,” he said with a smile in his voice.
“You mean there actually is one?”
“Or two,” he teased, somehow making the conversation feel normal again. “And since we’re now apparently at the trading dark secrets part of our friendship, I guess I’ll have to cough up one of them sooner rather than later.”
“You’ve got that right,” she teased. Or maybe it was more of a flirt. But if it was, it was unintentional.
“The point is that I get you better now and I promise I’ll stop giving you flack about your matchmaker. I get it—or at least I understand the situation well enough to stop being an ass about it.”
The comment should have been reassuring but part of Rori deflated.
“It’s one o’clock there now, so I should probably let you get some rest, but mind if I call you tomorrow?”
“You don’t need to call me tomorrow,” Rori said, looking at the clock and doing the mental math of how much sleep she’d get. Not enough—that was if she got any sleep at all. Here she’d just bared her soul to Mike and two minutes later he was saying goodbye? No matter what words were leaving his mouth, he was still running.
“Yeah, I kind of do,” he said cautiously. “Otherwise you’re going to go all girl on me and make up stories in your head about how I’m weirded out and avoiding you, and how you overshared and you’re stupid,