“No. But I thought you were just looking for some experiences, not necessarily… that.”
“Who doesn’t want that?”
Her mind was a montage of Zane. His hands, hard on her hips, his body hard as he thrust inside of her.
There was something dark and wonderful about the connection between them. It could also feel light and lovely, but there was an underlying intensity that felt… Unique. Perfect.
She blinked, trying to push back some tears.
Because she didn’t need to be thinking about that right now, she didn’t need to be wallowing or making this encounter with Marlowe seem weirder than it probably already did to her.
“I’m just not into Jackson. He’s… Well, haven’t you heard Walker talk about planning Addison Carey’s wedding? The whole family sounds like a nightmare. And he’s been nothing but polite when he’s come in, but you know it’s that thing, right? Make sure that the person you’re with would be nice to the waiter. He’s nice to me because he wants to go out with me. But I’m not sure that he would be otherwise.”
“That’s notquitehow that saying goes, but I do get what you mean. If you have a gut feeling about him, you should listen to that.”
That really felt unfair, because she had no gut feeling about him, and even being very weirdly rejected, he had been nice enough.
“I just have a gut feeling that it wouldn’t be a good fit. And at this point, as busy as I am running the bakery… I don’t want to waste an evening.”
“All right,” Marlowe said. “But… it would be nice if you put yourself out there a little bit.”
She wished that she could tell her. She really did. Because she had no idea how out there Cara had been putting herself.
“I hear you,” Cara said, “and I feel like… that’s nice. But I just have to do this my own way.”
“Fair. Totally fair,” Marlowe said. “I won’t melt. But I would like a latte, and I would like a strawberry roll.”
“Yep. No worries.”
She went in the back and grabbed both, and Marlowe was up at the register paying for them when Cara returned.
“You don’t have to pay,” she said, waving a hand at Marlowe.
“Yes, I do. If I don’t pay, how will I keep sustaining this ecosystem that means so much to me?”
“You take me to dinner often enough at the Painted Ridge dining room and don’t let me pay.”
“That’s different,” Marlowe said.
“It’s not different. Just take your sustenance and go.”
“All right. You’re doing okay, though, right?” Marlowe was looking at her intently, and Cara felt like she could see the truth. Written all over her face, written down in her soul.
“I am,” she said.
She was doing okay. She was doinggreat. That was the thing. She was actually doing really great.
It was just complicated, and she couldn’t give her the details, and if Zane wasn’t so afraid of Cody finding out, then maybe she would tell Marlowe. Though everything between her and Zane felt so… Because it was intense, and lovely, and intimate, and very private, she wasn’t sure if she was in a place where she would want to talk about it yet either way.
Because she didn’t have all the right words to describe it,because she didn’t have a pretty way to talk about it, and it would just end up with her saying they were sleeping together, and it didn’t feel like it was quite that.
It was, but it felt like more than that. Anyway, it was probably a good thing that she didn’t have to articulate it right now.
“I’ll see you later,” she said, trying to look cheerful.
“Yeah. Let’s do dinner soon. You haven’t been over to the hotel in a while.”
She hadn’t been. But that was a whole other thing. She didn’t know how to balance this… whole thing with him and anything other than work.
