“I picked up on falling back to this town and my past, and I remembered my promise never to do that. I wanted to be different from my family, and agreeing to marry a woman I didn’t even know the ring size of hit a little too close to what my dad did all our lives.”
“What’d he do?” she asked.
I rubbed a hand over my face, thinking of life before living with my grandparents. “He was a serial husband.”
“Better than a serial killer,” she joked, easing some of my tension.
“True. But he married and divorced seven times.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. Our house was a revolving door of stepmoms. Some good and some bad. Both of them sucked. The bad ones because, well, they were bad. The good ones because you knew they were going to end up taken advantage of, and that sucked too.”
“I’m sorry, Austin.” She turned in her stool to face me and wedged her legs between mine, pulling my hands in hers on her lap.
“Between him, watching my brother start doing the same thing, and taking in the example my grandparents set for what marriage should be, I knew I wouldn’t marry anyone unless I was serious. Unless I knew they were the one.”
“Then I came in.” Her smile looked painful. When she tried to pull her hands away from mine, I held tight.
“I’m not seeing a downside to that.” I was dead serious but delivered the words lightly.
Her eyes flicked to mine. I knew she saw the truth there, but she clung to my playful tone. We toed the line of facing our consequences but always turned back before we had to talk about them.
“Is it wrong that I’m jealous of missing out on such a big part of your life that obviously had a lot of meaning to you?” she said, pivoting away from my confession.
“I like you jealous,” I gloated.
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. We went through almost all of college together—the highs and lows and every adventure in between.”
“Most of them led by you,” I grumbled.
“You’re welcome for that.”
“I’m still not over the skydiving experience.”
“You loved it.”
“I loved when it was over,” I deadpanned.
“If you hated it so much, why did you go?”
I studied her. Her sharp cheekbones softened by the full pout of her lips. The deep brown eyes that shined even in the dark. They always held a spark of excitement in almost every situation. It was my Siren’s call. “Because how could I not? You make even the most terrifying experiences worth it. So, I follow.”
Her smile was slow and delicious. I wanted to taste every new curve and line as it appeared, knowing I put it there.
“So, speaking of exes…you seem better without Bodie.”
“What do you mean?”
Her smiles came easier this past month, even with the Vegas wedding looming over our heads. “You just seem…more you. More lively. The longer you were with him, the quieter you got. I always made it a point to dig out your wild side when I was with you, but sometimes, it was harder to find.”
Rae stared without blinking, the muscle along her jaw ticking, and my stomach dropped at the raw turmoil pouring from her. I was two seconds from snapping my fingers to bring her out of her thoughts, less than that from pulling her in my arms and making sure she was okay. But she blinked, and the emotion vanished.
She looked away with a wave of her hand. “You know? I am better off without him. Being in a relationship was sucking the freedom from my soul,” she groaned dramatically. “I just stuck it out because it looked good for the campaign, but you’re right, it did make me different, and it wasn’t worth pretending anymore.”
Something in her speech didn’t ring true, but I didn’t know what. This was the most she’d talked about her breakup and her relationship in general. She usually brushed any conversation about Bodie off, so I took advantage to maybe find some answers about what dimmed inside her with him. “How did he take it?”
“I mean, no one takes it well when they realize they can’t have me.”
I snorted but continued to push. “Seriously, though. He gave me a bad vibe. Like maybe he wouldn’t take being dumped too well. Like maybe he’d push—”
“Nah.” She waved the words away. “I made sure he knew that we were done. There was no room for doubt.”
Just then, her phone vibrated again on the counter, except this time, she powered it down. I was about to push her on it when the bartender asked if we wanted another drink.
“How about vodka gimlets,” she suggested, waggling her brows my way.
“I don’t know. Look what happened last time.”
She scoffed. “What’s the worst that could happen? Wake up married to your best friend in Vegas?”