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Or a father.
If he wanted children.
Which he didn’t.
Once they were finished eating, he tossed their cartons in the trash, poured two glasses of wine, and they moved to the living room sofa.
He sat first, and although he’d told her, only moments before, that his family had mostly shied away from organized religion, a blip of something returned when she sat beside him.
“Now, for the nitty gritty,” she said. “Our list.”
He spread his arm along the back of the chair, behind her head. “We have all weekend to tackle our list.”
“There are some things I want to work out now, though.” She took a sip from her glass. “Number one? Sex. I say we leave it off the table.”
“I’m fine with that. Sex on the table might be awkward, anyway. I think we’ll fare just fine with a bed. Maybe this sofa. Kitchen countertops. The car. The elevator. My office.”
“Exactly. It’s the first thing I thought when I saw it. It’s too small.”
“Let’s buy a bigger table, then.”
She touched her glass to his. “That’s solved. Next is our living situation. I propose that, for us to get the full effect of being married, we live together.”
“I don’t m—”
“But not here.”
“You don’t like my place?” he asked.
“No, it’s beautiful. Our design styles are very similar—quiet, subdued, made for reducing tension. But living here gives you too much advantage. Here, we won’t achieve balance.”
“To be honest, I can’t exactly leave the area right now.”
She waved a hand. “Oh, I know. I wouldn’t be that selfish. My schedule’s way more flexible, so I’ll move here for the next few months to be with you.”
He wiped away a smile with a scrub of his chin. “So you want to buy something? Depending upon how long closing takes, that could end up being the entire agreement.”
“Miguel bought a house.”
“He and Delilah are moving already?”
“No, and prepare yourself for what I’m about to say next.” She took another sip from her glass, eyes locked with his. “Okay, so when he and Delilah were looking for a new place, she couldn’t decide between another condo or a house.”
“Don’t tell me he bought both.”
“That’s exactly what he did. You see, Miguel is sweet. Super sweet. He’s always been that way, which is why he got…picked on, you could say, as a child by some of his more cruel family members. That sweet guy? He fell in love with Delilah. You know my sister. Those two will spend the rest of their lives bending over backward to try to make the other happy.”
“Is that what you want?” He did well for himself but didn’t make Miguel’s kind of money—nine figures with the stroke of a pen.
Still, he was willing to do whatever he could to make her happy, outside of buying her multiple residences to choose from.
“Our relationship’s not exactly close to theirs,” she explained. “They have nearly a lifetime of friendship to fall back on. You and I? You could say that we’re undergoing a weird dating experiment.”
“Then maybe it’s a good thing the chapel had that prenup add-on discount special,” he said. “I am known to be a gold-digger.”
Bubbling with laughter, she finished her wine, and he took the glasses to the kitchen before reclaiming his spot next to her.
She leaned against his side, and while they didn’t have a friendship as solid as Delilah’s and Miguel’s to fall back on, they had something. No one could convince him they didn’t have something.
