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“It was a joke,” she claimed. At my doubtful stare, she revised, “Maybe he was half serious, but he only suggested it because he loves you.”
I let that fabrication slide and turned to my bacon. “His love is painful.” After my dad died and I'd broken it off with Verity, I'd gone on a month-long binge of drinking and sex with women I barely knew, ending with that night with Winter. My well-intentioned roommates took this as a sign that I needed distracting. “I still have bruises from the last time we went paintballing.”
I pulled up my T-shirt and pointed to the left side of my abdomen where Noah had shot me twice. AnnMarie tsked sympathetically.
“I don’t see any marks.”
“They’re psychological,” I informed her.
She laughed and patted me on the shoulder. “Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
I plated eggs and bacon while AnnMarie buttered toast and poured coffee. “How’s it going with you these days?”
“I’m glad school is almost over. I was thinking about getting a job. Bo said he was going to be busy doing more work for you.”
I made a face. “The Riverside project is keeping me too busy to oversee our flips, but I think Bo can handle them.”
“Don’t tell him I told you this, but he’s like a nervous girl on her first date.” She grinned, clearly delighted at seeing Bo suffer a little insecurity. He did throw off the aura of a guy supremely comfortable in his skin—kind of like I was before my dad died. I hadn’t ever suffered a whiff of anything unfortunate in my life. Placid and drama free.
Then it all blew up. My mom slept with Dad’s brother. Dad found out and had a heart attack. Now he was dead, and she couldn’t get out of bed.
It had made me rethink everything, including relationships. I was nearing my quarter century mark, and while I’d had plenty of girlfriends, Ivy and Winter were absolutely right. I hadn’t loved any of them. I hadn’t cared when the relationships were over, and I was often glad to see the back of th
e girl when she walked out on me.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t capable of something serious. Right?
"Did I ever tell you I've never asked a girl out?" I informed AnnMarie.
“How is that even possible?”
I laughed a little self-consciously. "When I was in eighth grade, Shannon Blake came up to me after first period on the first day of second semester and said I was going out with her."
"And that was it?"
I shrugged sheepishly. "She was pretty cute. Why fight it?"
"How long did you date her?"
"Off and on for a couple of years."
"Wow, a long time. What happened next?"
"During the second week of tenth grade, I met Julie. She had a yen for pale skin and asked me if I glittered in the sunlight. I don't, as you know, but she kept lifting my shirt for a peek, and eventually she just took it off and kept it. We drifted apart. I think she was disappointed at my lack of sparkle. In my junior year, Ivy Donovan came up to my locker and said that since I was single it was time to date her. And I did, for over four years. After her was my chem lab partner Bethenney—three e's, two n's. She and I ended up playing on the same coed intramural flag football team. She made a pass, I caught it—literally. Then we went out until I graduated from State and moved back home."
"You've had all these girlfriends? And you didn't want to marry or anything?" She sounded bewildered. It never occurred to me it was unusual in any way.
"It was high school and then college." I raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't there to get my MRS degree."
"Still," she replied faintly.
Irritated, I tried to joke my way out. "It's my superpower." I winked. "Yours is taming wild men. Mine is never having to ask a girl out. They've always asked me."
She picked up her coffee and leaned back in her chair, eyeing me speculatively. “But now you've found a girl you like, and you don't know how to ask her out.”
I spread my hands out in front of me. "Yes, my perceptive dear, what should a man do if his superpower abandons him?"
She smiled over the rim of her mug. "Tell me about her."
