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“Okay. You think I’m a bad kisser? I didn’t make you squeak.”
“That’s not what I meant. We’re supposed to be talking about your sexual orientation and your life story and why someone is threatening you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Can I tell you something I’ve never told another woman?” Judah asked, leaning closer and looking earnest.
“Of course.”
“Your boyfriend’s hot.”
He waggled his eyebrows, a 1980s gay stereotype come to life, and she laughed and shoved him. Sean glanced up from the laptop and gave her a blank look that made her want to climb up on the coffee table and do a striptease, just to provoke a reaction from him. She stuck out her tongue instead. He went back to work.
Judah slumped against the couch with a wistful half-smile. “He is, though, honestly. He has that lean, rugged cowboy thing going. Hopelessly straight.”
“You can tell that by looking at him?”
“No, honey, I could tell that by watching him look at you. That man wants to nail you to the nearest flat surface.”
“You think?” she asked, glancing over at Sean again. He was running one hand through his hair, completely absorbed in his work. His hair was getting unruly. If he kept working for a few more hours, it would be sticking up all over the place by bedtime. No wonder he kept it so short.
“Aww,” Judah said. “That’s sweet.”
“What’s sweet?” she asked, only half paying attention because Sean was still distracting her with the way he slumped when he worked on the computer. Like a seventeen-year-old boy. She wanted to find him a desk and give him a lecture on ergonomics. But not as much as she wanted to watch him and think about how hot he was.
“You’re a goner.”
That got her attention. “No, I’m not. I hardly know him.”
“You are, too.”
“I’m not,” she insisted. “I haven’t even slept with him. And if I did, it would be a just-for-fun thing. Like you were going to be, until you went all gay on me.”
Judah smiled his lady-killer smile and said, “I’m not all gay. I’m at least twenty percent straight.”
“Okay,” she said, “now we’re getting somewhere. I want to hear about that twenty percent, and then I want to hear about the other eighty. Tell me all your dirty little secrets, Pratt. Help me figure out who wants your head on a platter. Talk.”
“All right. Where do you want me to start?”
“I don’t know. Tell me about your family. You’re an only child, right?”
“Yep. Just me and my parents and a little house in Pella, Iowa. Home of the Tulip Festival, Central College, and Pella Windows and Doors.”
“Sounds wholesome.”
His lip curled. “It was.”
“Were you a wholesome kid?”
“For a while. Until I wasn’t anymore.”
“When did you go off the rails?”
He leaned back, crossed his arms behind his head, and started telling her a rehearsed-sounding story about a prank he’d pulled at church when he was twelve. She’d read the same story in a magazine once, so she let her mind wander a little. She understood that he needed to get warmed up before he told her anything too personal. Everybody did.
It worked this way tending bar, too, or chatting with folks on a hike or on a river. You started with the easy stories and worked your way in.
Meanwhile, the wheels were turning somewhere in the recesses of her brain, and Fretful Katie was doing h
er thing, tossing out the confidence-lacking, mind-fucking questions she specialized in. Do you really think you’re the sort of person who can pull off a meaningless fling? It’s not like you’ve ever had one before. Even if Sean does want you, it’s not like you can turn into a different person overnight just because you’re no longer wearing a ring. You think you can sleep with Sean and not fall for him?
