“I told you. Too much wine, followed by a wrong turn out of the bathroom.”
He’s torn. I can see that in the hungry way he stares at my breasts and in the fiery look in his gaze when it shifts to my face. “I never imagined you sleeping naked.”
“Can’t do it at home with three little ones crawling all over me.”
He’s not exactly kicking me out.
“I, um… I can go. Sorry to bother you.”
“Wait.”
Best word ever.
“Was there something else?” I ask as innocently as possible, even as my heart pounds and my nipples tingle in a way they haven’t in a long time.
“What do you really want?”
I feign confusion, and wish I was filming this performance so I could submit it for awards—and as a training video for other widows trying to jumpstart their love lives. “Uh, well, eight hours of sleep would be cool. That never happens.”
“And that’s it? That’s all you want?”
I stretch out on my side, facing him, head propped on my upturned hand. “Is there somethingyouwant?”
His face tightens with tension and what might be distress. We can’t have that.
“Never mind. Don’t answer that. I’ll just see you in the morning.”
“Don’t go.”
No, wait,thoseare the best words ever. They’re gruffly spoken, as if he’s not sure he should’ve said them. But he doesn’t take them back.
I drop down so my head is on the pillow, hands under my cheek. “I’m here.”
He releases a short laugh. “Believe me, I know.”
“It was an honest mistake.”
“Was it, though?”
“What’re you accusing me of?” I ask, full of innocence.
He rolls his dark eyes and runs a hand through wavy dark hair. “So many things.”
I love that I’m not fooling him at all, but he still doesn’t ask me to go. “You want to talk or sleep?”
“Is there a third option?” he asks, shocking me for a second.
“Always.”
He tips his head as if considering whether I mean that.
I do. I adore him for so many reasons, and I’ve had a wicked crush on him for almost as long as I’ve known him. It’s almost two years since he joined the Wild Widows, which was nearly a year after he’d lost his wife and daughters. Hard to believe sometimes the way time goes by after the worst kind of loss. It marches on with no consideration whatsoever for broken hearts or shattered lives.
Gage’s loss was worse than most. His wife and twin eight-year-old daughters were killed by a drunk driver. I wonder all the time what he was like before that unimaginable loss. He doesn’t smile much, and his arresting face wears the grief he carries with him. It’s hard to articulate what I mean by that, but I canseehis grief whenever I look at him, and that pains me. I’m not sure when his pain became mine, too, but it’s been that way for a while.
“If I choose door number three, will it make everything different between us?” he asks.
“It could, but different isn’t necessarily bad, is it?”