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“No,” Jake said crisply.
“I wasn’t going to,” Ian snapped at him. “Not while her arm is still in the splint.”
Not for the first time, I wished the splint was history. “Well, maybe when I’m better,” I suggested, and Ian jerked his attention back to me.
“Really?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m going to hold you to that maybe.”
“Yeah, because it says so much for my level of commitment.”
He snorted. “True. But I’d still like to take you for a ride. Just say the word.”
My heart did a little fist bump with my ribs, and I swallowed. We never had really gotten to go on our date.
What he asked right now wasn’t pretending. Even if it was a simple offer to go for a ride on the bike, it seemed heavier somehow, far more meaningful.
The silence stretched out uncomfortably, and Jake shifted his stance. “C’mon, you got the bike, let’s head back. You coming back to Frankie’s or heading home?”
The weight of Ian’s stare pressed in on me. Meeting his gaze, I read the question in them.
Did I want him to come back?
“I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning. I might be in a much worse mood tomorrow, so tonight would be good.”
A flash of a smile softened his expression, and he winked. “Then let’s go.”
If I thought I was off the hook ’cause Ian was on his bike and Jake in the SUV, I was wrong.
“You okay over there, Baby Girl?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, not bothering to pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about. “I don’t know what I want right now.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “That means you haven’t closed the door entirely.”
“But I did.”
“No,” Jake argued. “You broke up with Bubba and told him if he didn’t want to date or couldn’t trust you to know your own mind, then maybe you just needed to be friends. That wasn’t closing a door, Frankie. That was giving him a solid kick in the ass.”
“How does he know he really wants to do this when he didn’t before?”
“I don’t know,” Jake admitted as we sat waiting for the light to change. “How do any of us know? Sometimes…sometimes we have to have reality dump cold water on us. Sometimes we have to see the girl we want is about to go out with some total stranger and realize the thing we’ve always wanted suddenly became attainable again.”
“Sometimes, we have to find out our best friends are the best cock blockers there are?” I glanced at him, and he grinned.
“Damn straight.” He brushed his thumb over my chin. “Whatever you want with Bubba. I mean that. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate, but he’s here. He’s been here. I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”
Again.
I didn’t think he was going anywhere before, and I leaned my head back against the seat. “I want to believe that.”
“Then make him work for it,” he whispered. “I’ll help. I’ll model how good boyfriends behave.”
Laughter shivered through me. “You are a good boyfriend.”
“Damn straight.”
