Page 44 of Hard Corps (Selected Sinners MC 7)

“Vicious cycle,” I said as I reached for my pizza.

I felt like I was in high school again. Not because of her age, but because of the innocence I felt sitting with her. I felt no pressure, no need to act in any way in particular, and extremely comfortable – with the exception of being overly excited about being there with her.

Sitting there with her made me feel as if I was preparing to gather the courage to ask a date to the prom. Crossing my legs repeatedly, only to find no real comfort in doing so, and rubbing my hands together repeatedly were tell-tale signs of my excitement. I didn’t once try to hide my feelings or the signs of them, only smiled each time I noticed I was doing something contrary to my norm.

It was a nice change.

“So, are you...you’re single, right?” she asked.

“As single as they come,” I said with a nod.

She smiled and her eyes fell to my chest. After a second or two she lifted them to meet my gaze. “How?”

“My choice, I suppose,” I said flatly. “I went through a divorce after I got back from the war. My wife wasn’t quite faithful. I tried to fix it, and thought I could fix it, but in the end, she wasn’t willing to stay faithful, so I left.”

“And you were faithful?” she asked.

“Absolutely. I don’t take things like commitment lightly. It’s a promise, or at least it is to me. That’s the way I see it,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes. “She cheated on you?”

“She sure did,” I responded.

“Wow,” she said. After a second or two of silence, she shrugged her shoulders. “Sorry.”

“Glad it’s over now, and glad we didn’t have kids, I guess. Not that I don’t want any, just glad I didn’t have any with her,” I said.

Her mouth formed a smile large enough to expose her extremely white teeth. “You like kids?”

I nodded my head. “Love ‘em.”

She focused on me for a minute, dropped her eyes to the table, and after a few seconds, cleared her throat. “But. I mean. You’re like. You’re just. Well, you’re not the typical single guy.”

I chuckled. “What’s the typical single guy?”

“A douchebag,” she said with a laugh.

“Well, I’m not one of those,” I responded.

She coughed a laugh and reached for her glass of tea. “No, you’re sure not.”

“And you. You’re single?” I asked.

I was pretty sure she was, but not positive. Thinking of a girl like her being single was almost impossible to imagine.

She lowered her glass. Her eyes went wide as her mouth curled into a smile. Almost as if she realized she was outwardly expressing her excitement, she tried to shake off the smile, but didn’t quite succeed.

She wiped her mouth and nodded her head. “Sure am.”

I grinned and nodded my head, expecting she’d expand on her answer.

After a few minutes of fidgeting in her seat, she gazed down at the table and once again seemed to fade off into deep thought. In an effort to not get caught again, I shifted my eyes from my remaining pizza to her and back repeatedly, finding something about her with each glance that I enjoyed.

“I don’t know what Ripp told you about the guy he was in court about,” she said as she glanced upward. “The guy he uhhm. You know, the guy he killed.”

I shook my head as I wiped my hands on my napkin. “Nothing, really. I just know he did something to you, and then when Ripp confronted him, he pulled a gun.”

“Well, it was a long time ago, really, but the guy and I were hanging out, you know. And, after a while, it got serious. So, as far as sex went, he knew I was saving myself for the right man, and I didn’t know if he was that man. So, uhhm, we never had sex.”