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“He’s a good man.” Her voice wavers. “We lost touch a long time ago, but he is such a good man, Rook.”
I’ve never heard him described that way in anything I’ve read about him, but I know she’s speaking the truth because this woman isn’t capable of lying to me, just as I’m not capable of lying to her.
“I’m glad I didn’t drive my fist through his face when I saw him holding your hand.”
She tosses her head back in laughter. “You wouldn’t have done that.”
I like that she believes that, but I was close to heaving him off that swing.
“I need to talk to him before you take me home,” she says. “Do you want me to put in a good word for you?”
Chuckling, I press a kiss to her lips. “I can handle him.”
“I know you can.” She kisses me back. “You’re Rook Thorsen. You can handle anything.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Carrie
I watch as the man I love shakes hands with the man I once confided my deepest secrets to.
My sister knows most of those secrets now, including the first time I took a sip of beer with Dalton by my side, and when we stole a comic book from the corner store. Dalton’s grandma marched us back there to make amends to the store’s owner by sweeping the sidewalk in front of his store after school for a month.
There is still one of my secrets that Dalton has always held onto.
As I hear him agree to a contract that appoints Rook as his legal representative in New York State, I know what I have to do.
I have to tell Rook before the night is over what happened to me when I was eighteen. The events of that night pushed me so far into a cocoon of self-preservation that I remained a virgin until just a few weeks ago.
I dove into school and then my job with every ounce of the energy I possessed.
I thought it would be enough until I could meet up with a random guy on my thirtieth birthday and leave the virgin label in my past.
The drive to handle intimacy that way wasn’t necessarily based on my need to know what sex was like, but it was more about not wanting my virginity to be a constant reminder of the first time I was supposed to have sex at that graduation party when I was just eighteen.
“I’ll have Posey send the contract to your office in Boston,” Rook tells Dalton.
Dalton shakes his head. “Forward it to the Allard Industries office based in midtown. I’m going to hang around Manhattan.”
“To spend time with Carrie?” Rook asks, but there’s no jealousy in his tone.
Al nods. “I also have family in the city. I haven’t connected with them in some time, and we have unfinished business.”
We’ve never discussed his mom’s death or the stepsiblings that came into his life before his dad died, but I’m here to listen if he ever needs that.
I’m not sure what the future holds for our friendship, but I’ll always be grateful for the moment we had in the playground tonight under a crescent moon.
“I’m going to take off.” He gestures to a Range Rover parked near the curb under a streetlight. “It was good seeing you again, Gilbert.”
I smile at the nickname that he’s always called me. “You too, Al.”
A smile ghosts his mouth at the sound of his.
He’s the one who told me to call him that. I never wavered, even after his grandma corrected me and told me to call him Dalton.
“Love looks good on you,” he tells me. “Really, really good.”
I nestle closer into Rook’s side. His arm is draped around me, tugging me next to him.
