“So let me get this straight. You pick this woman up at a bar, spend a couple of nights with her and now you’re hooked?” Chad shook his dark head. “She’s got to be something in bed. There’s no other explanation for why you’ve turned stupid on me again after all that work getting past Drama Debby.”
“That’s not all it is.” Troy wanted to explain further, but there was no way he was going to quote Justin’s line about nerve endings coming to life.
“What can you know about a person in a week, even if you spend every second together? Bev might not be a mystery to me anymore, but it sure as hell took longer than a week to get past the initial impression.” He grabbed his water bottle, took a long pull. “I was waiting until you settled after ditching Debby, but I’m thinking it’s time for intervention now. Bev has a colleague at Atwood Elementary she’s been wanting to match you up with, a kindergarten teacher named Jan.”
Troy groaned. Chad ignored him. “She’s twenty-four, smart, sweet as hell, nice family, she’s great with kids, no dysfunctional garbage in her past. We’ll have you over to dinner. You’ll like her. Everybody likes her.”
Troy wanted to laugh. He knew what was coming. She just hasn’t met the right guy yet.
“She’s dated around, but you know, she just hasn’t met the right guy yet.”
“Yeah?” He upped his incline, heart starting to pump; Chad swore softly and did the same. “How about that.”
Maybe Troy was following his old patterns of finding women who’d treat him like crap—he and Justin used to joke about how they managed to find the psychos in every crowd. But Justin found someone sweet, sexy and devoted to him in Candy. It wasn’t impossible that Troy had changed, too.
“Can I tell Bev you’re interested?”
“Chad…”
“All you have to do is meet her, not propose.”
“I know.” He gritted his teeth. There was no way he could fit another woman in his brain right now. But if he said no, Chad would keep pestering, if for no other reason than Bev would keep pestering him. “I need to see where this goes first.”
“I already know where it’s going.”
Troy responded by increasing his speed to a sprint. Chad followed, and they did the last quarter mile in a mess of sloppy form and heaving chests before they stopped, out of breath and laughing.
Before Chad could start in again, Troy changed the subject to Packers football and their playoff odds for the next season, counting on the topic to take over Chad’s football-addicted brain completely, relieved when it worked all the way through their cool-down walk and into the weight room, where Chad did a perfunctory set and went home to Bev.
Troy stayed, working hard, then harder, working out muscles in his body and working out issues in his brain. Darcy during bicep curls. Jan during chest presses. Darcy during pec flies. His old girlfriend Debby during triceps kickbacks. Darcy during sit-ups on the slant board. Where was he messing up? Where were the women messing up?
He pictured Bev, Chad’s wife, her peaceful smile, her welcoming home, the constancy of her attention and devotion to her husband.
Troy would be bored to death.
He sat up the last time, grinning. To death. He’d come home to Jan who had a hot dinner waiting, smiling welcome, and he’d just dissolve into a puddle of boredom and cease to be.
Whereas Darcy… Coming home to her… Now that would be a hot dinner.
He got off the slant board and down to the showers before his shorts took on a peculiar shape.
Troy had learned his lesson dating Debby. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes again. But that didn’t mean he had to go in the opposite direction and set a life course with Donna Reed.
He wanted Darcy, to the exclusion of any other type of woman he could imagine. There was no point trying to drive himself crazy going against his instinct.
The only trick going forward was to make sure Darcy kept wanting him.
9
MARIE WAS NEARLY READY. OH, MY Lord, nearly ready and shaking from nerves, and furious with herself for being at all anxious. How many times had she been out alone with Quinn? Practically every week since they’d officially introduced themselves in January, five months ago at the Roots Restaurant and Cellar bar. When had he ever been anything more than an easy, comfortable companion? Just because they were going to be meeting at a different restaurant didn’t mean anything else would change.