My Grumpy Old Bear - Jayda Marx Page 0,6
now and carry him off like a damn caveman if it wouldn’t cause me excruciating pain. “What happened?”
He blinked at me and I wondered if he was going to answer. Finally, he sighed and replied, “Kevin spent the entire evening talking about himself. Then when he drove me home, he tried to get handsy. Apparently since he paid for dinner, he thought he should get access to my ass. I got out of his car and told him never to call me again.”
Oh fuck no. If I ever saw that slimy bastard again, I’d shove my foot so far up his ass that everytime he brushed his teeth, he’d shine my shoe. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
“Honestly? No.”
“That’s real nice, Brooks.” He started to stand up to leave, but I reached out for him.
“No, no, no, that’s not what I meant. Please sit down.” After a moment of hesitation, he did as I asked. “I’m sorry he treated you like that, but I’m not sorry your date went to shit.”
His features finally softened a little. “Why?”
I roughly scrubbed my hand over my face. “I think we have a lot to discuss. Do you have time to talk now?”
Noah chewed on his lip, deep in thought. “I’ll check with Jess to see if she can cover for me to take a lunch break.” Without another word, he stood and disappeared into the building. He came back out a few minutes later and flopped back into his seat. “Okay, let’s talk.”
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? This is your lunch break. I’ll get you something; my treat.”
Noah shook his head. “Honestly, I can’t even think about food right now. My stomach is churning at the thought of what you’re going to say.”
“Fair enough. I’ll get right to it then.” I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for what I said yesterday. I never should have said we weren’t friends. It was a shitty thing to do.”
“Yeah it was. But why did you do it? I thought we were getting along great.” He let out a long breath. “Look, I’m sorry I kind of tricked you into a date. If you don’t like me, that’s okay. But you could have just told me you weren’t interested in me without acting like an ass.”
“But I am,” I blurted out, and his eyes grew large. “I pushed you away because I thought it was the right thing to do.”
“You...pushed me away because you like me?” he asked, looking understandably confused.
“I pushed you away because I shouldn’t like you!”
“Why not?”
I scrubbed my face again as I collected my thoughts. “How old are you?”
“I turned twenty three a few months ago.” Holy fuck, it’s worse than I thought.
“I’m forty five.”
Noah strained his neck like he was waiting for me to continue. “And?”
“And? You don’t see the problem? Noah, in five years I’ll be fifty, and you won’t even be thirty!”
He gasped and clutched his chest. Finally, he was beginning to understand. He leaned closer to me and said, “You mean there would always be a twenty two year age gap between us?” I squinted my eyes at the little shit, who just laughed. He could laugh at me all he wanted, though; I was just glad he didn’t seem to hate me anymore. “Brooks, would it make you feel better to know I’ve always been attracted to older men, and that I’ve dated guys older than you?”
Actually, it felt like a kick in the balls to think about him dating anyone else. Still, my curiosity got the better of me. “How much older?”
“My last boyfriend was fifty two,” he shrugged and my jaw dropped. “And you know what? We had a lot of fun. We’d probably still be together if I hadn’t found out he was actually married with children. Even grandchildren. Apparently, I was just a mid-life crisis fling to him.”
“Holy shit.” He’d just dumped a big steaming pile of shock in my lap and I was having trouble sorting through it.
“Yeah. Let’s just say his wife got an anonymous letter about what he’d been up to, along with several pictures to prove the story.”
“Holy shit,” I repeated, too stunned to say much else. “I didn’t know you had it in you!”
“I didn’t do it for revenge. I did it to inform his wife. I never would have been with him had I known he had an entire secret life, and I felt guilty. They’d built a life together and she didn’t deserve what he did to her; she