The Love Coupon (Stubborn Hearts 2)

“And that’s why I was on your balcony in my underwear this morning. Do you still care what your dad thinks?”

“Not always.” They had a better relationship now that they lived in different states and saw each other less. “He’s a hard-ass.” That made her smile. He hoped this would too. “I put a key in the red pot on the table on the deck. You won’t need to worry about being locked out again.”

“That’s as good as your tuna casserole.” She put her hands together and bowed her head over them. “I made you talk about your dead mom again tonight.”

“I made you talk about maybe having sex as a minor with an adult who could’ve been arrested for it.”

“Does that mean we get cobbler now?”

It meant something had shifted between them. Not sure what.

She went to change out of her suit while the cobbler cooled. She took all her stuff back to her room. He unpacked her groceries and put them away while the Bowie playlist morphed into Freddie Mercury. He listened to “Exercises in Free Love” and “Foolin’ Around,” and Flick came back as Freddie sang “Living On My Own.”

“Your theme song. How appropriate.” She did a little dance while Freddie sang the scat, shifting her hips and waving her hands above her head. “You have an eclectic taste in music.”

He liked the little dance. The unabashed joy of it. And how she looked doing it in yoga pants. “Freddie Mercury is a classic.”

“He’s a playlist someone else put together.”

“Still a classic. Sit down and eat your dessert.”

She slipped onto the stool and he slid cobbler in front of her, and when he could see she wanted another scoop of ice cream, he had one too, and when she moved to the sectional, he followed. He was pleasantly full and the weight of the week had lifted off him. He sprawled against the cushions, head supported, legs stretched out in front.

They were at opposite ends of the sectional that was too deep for her and Freddie had become Roy Orbison. With the volume turned down Roy sang “I Drove All Night.”

“You can put your legs up.”

She brought her knees and bare feet up and sat on one hip with them tucked beside her so fluently he knew she’d sat like that when he wasn’t here. “Who initiated it?” she asked.

He rolled his head on the sectional back and raised a brow.

“Your first kiss at desperate seventeen.”

He groaned. “She did.”

“And then?”

“No.”

“You made me talk about my sexual predator boyfriend.”

He sat upright. “You said—”

“Keep your shirt on. It wasn’t like that.”

“Hmm.” Twice her age. He slumped into the seat again. No way he could get happy with that.

“Oh, come on.” She thumped the sectional. “I’m giving you the opening to brag about your sexual prowess.”

Roy started in on “She’s a Mystery to Me.” It was how he’d felt about women at seventeen. He still felt that way about some of them.

“No. You’re baiting me for the gory detail of my first tender sexual encounter.”

“Tender, ouch.”

If he threw a cushion at her, she would throw it back and he didn’t trust her aim. Something would get broken.

“First time I had sex was horrible.”