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“So does it really matter at the end of that month, you stay here while I’m gone, bring your clothes here so your mom can use your place, and when I’m away, you sleep in my bed, when I’m here, you sleep beside me in that bed, and when your mom gets her shit sorted, you move back? I mean, babe, I’m not sure I understand the hesitation. She’s in a jam. This is a solution that’s no skin off anyone’s nose. Except you have to bring your things over here temporarily.”
“Temporarily,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “I think it’s best she have a deadline. We can find out when the settlement is going through, which shouldn’t take long. She goes into your place knowing she has three months, maybe four, your call, and at the end of that, she has to be out.”
“It seems to be taking advantage of you, Hale.”
“Not if I offer.”
“Can I pay you rent?”
“Now you’re pissing me off,” he whispered.
She pressed her lips together.
That tightness was back with a vengeance when he asked, “Is there another reason you’re hesitating?”
She studied his face, intently, and for a long time, before she said softly, “No. It’s just an incredibly thoughtful, magnanimous gesture. I’m thrown. But this means we can all stop worrying about Mom, and she can stop worrying too and use that headspace to figure her shit out. We’d all be really grateful for that.”
“Right, so you can call her tomorrow. Set her mind at ease.”
“Okay.”
“Kiss me,” he ordered. “That one at the elevator was bullshit.”
Finally, she smiled, melted into him and kissed him.
When she pulled away, he mumbled, “Better.”
“We’ll be late if we don’t go soon,” she reminded him.
He nodded. “Need to hit the bathroom. Can you text Paul we’re coming down?”
She nodded.
He touched his lips to hers, set her away, then walked to the powder room.
* * *
It was after dinner.
The men and the women had separated.
And Hale smiled as he listened to Elsa and Mika cackling.
Actually cackling.
He should have known they’d get along from the get go. They were cut from the same cloth. Talented women who knew their worth and what they wanted and didn’t settle for less of either.
The women were in the front part of Tom and Mika’s long living room, sitting on a couch together, having started on martinis, graduated to wine during dinner, now they were back on martinis.
Elsa was absolutely drunk.
Sex was going to be fantastic that night.
Or better than the usual fantastic, whatever you called that.
“Hale.”
