“Lowe, why is your mom setting you up on dates?”
“My mom’s always setting me up on dates.” Both her shoulders lifted in a half-assed shrug, but the tension in them gave away the frustration she was trying to hide.
It didn’t stop me from needing to contain the irritation, or incredulity in my voice, however, because I had no fucking clue what was going on, and I didn’t like it one bit.
“Why?”
She stepped away and walked into the bathroom. “Because I’m single and she wants grandchildren.”
I would impregnate her right now if that’s all it took to get Abigail off her case… but there was a more immediate concern.
“You’re not going to go on them though, right?” I waited for her to come back out of the bathroom to agree, but she didn’t. “Right?”
The shower started running, steam filling the bathroom as quickly as I’d filled with overpowering levels of jealousy at the thought of anyone being granted her attention after I’d had all of it. I was failing to comprehend why she was either ignoring me or wasn’t taking my obvious concern seriously.
And if I used to get jealous about any guy Lowe dated before, it had nothing on the murderous emerald lava presently coursing through my veins. She was the only thing I’d ever felt jealousy over. I hated every guy she’d ever dated, and that was when I never in a million years thought I’d be one of them.
Now I was, there was no way I was letting anyone follow me.
No fucking way.
This was it.Shewas it.
Abigail Slater was going to have to find a new hobby.
“Right?” I pushed, following her in. “You’re not going on them?”
“No,” she replied, standing beneath the heavy shower stream, one I’d intended on fucking her under before we were rudely interrupted.
“No?”
She squeezed out a dollop of shampoo into her hand. “Penn, I literally found out about them at the same time you did. They’redates to add to the pile of other dates I don’t go on which she also set me up on.”
I stopped my teeth from gritting at the ‘other dates’ reference and dropped my towel on the floor, joining her under the shower. This wasn’t a conversation to have with a wall between us, even if it was made of glass.
“Okayyyy, good, because…” I gestured between us, while she moved out of the way.
“What is…” she repeated my gesture back to me, even though I thought it was perfectly self-explanatory.
“You and me.”
She tipped her head back to rinse all the shampoo out of her hair. “Is there a you and me? Isn’t that a bit premature?”
I knew I wasn’t the root cause of her sour mood, but I had no problem making sure she knew where I was metaphorically standing right now. As far as I was concerned there was anus, there was awe, and most certainly ayou and me.
“No, it fucking isn’t, and yes, that’s exactly what we are. So now you can tell your mom about us then she’ll cool off.”
She spluttered under the shower, her eyes flashing navy. “No, absolutely not.”
I raised my eyebrow at the anger now lacing her tone, even though my tone was probably carrying the same levels.
She picked up the conditioner from the shelf. “She’ll ruin everything before we’ve even decided what we want from this.”
“What does that mean, what we want?”
“It means, before last week you barely spoke a word to me. In twenty-five years, Penn, barely a word! Then we kissed, and now we’ve slept together in the space of a week. Not to mention you have a habit of moving on quickly…” her head went back under the shower. “It’s no secret that you don’t spend long with one woman. Lauren always gives you shit for it.”
I frowned deeply. She wasn’t even rambling; no, she was very clear in making her point of view on me. She alsodidhave a point, but what she didn’t realize was that as I could never have her, I always felt it utterly pointless to spend time with a woman, stringing them along when I’d never be able to give them my heart.
