“I’ve got something better than a gold star for you.” His tone was heavy with innuendo.
“Titanium?” she teased.
He chuckled. “Harder than.”
“Now there’s a name for you,Harder than Titanium.”
“Kind of in the same category asChick Magnet, don’t you think?”
She laughed, moving off of her knees as she reached for her beer. Settling in, she stretched out her legs. He reached over and rested his hand on her thigh, using this thumb to caress the space above her knee, and it shot straight up her center.
“DidThe Caseliget named in a day?” Mac asked.
Cassidy frowned, thinking back, then gave him an apologetic side-eye. “Um, yeah. It wasn’t about what to name it, but how.” They’d known they wanted it to represent both of them.
“Perfect couple,” he said again.
Cassidy toyed with the beer in her hands, tearing at the label with a fingernail. Her heart ached at his words. And for once, she wasn’t sure if it was because it was true or because it seemed to hurt him. “No one’s perfect, not even Elijah. I’m not that stupid.”
He squeezed her knee. “I didn’t say you were stupid.”
Her eyes glanced off his profile before she returned to her contemplation of the water. “He was perfect for me. Our life was perfect even with all of its imperfections. I won’t apologize for it or for missing him.”
“You’re reading into it, Day.”
They were quiet for a moment; both lost in thought. She assumed he was, anyway. Maybe he was just imagining himself on his boat back at their lake; there was no way to know. Men could be simple sometimes, as she well knew, having lived with one for six years. Elijah would be deep in thought, and she would tread lightly, thinking he was creating a masterpiece in his mind, when he’d ask something ridiculous like, “Why can’t you put milk in the Mr. Coffee for hot chocolate? I mean, pour in the milk and heat it. No reason it should curdle.”
A statement that, of course, would dumbfound her that her brilliant husband could look so serious and scholarly and think something so asinine, and in the next second have her running to the kitchen to discover the ruined coffee maker. Thus, the French presses they had owned.
“How’d you meet him?”
The question startled her. She looked over. “What?”
“Elijah. How’d you meet him?” He shifted attention from the sunny horizon to her, his hand again squeezing her knee as though offering her encouragement to tell him.
Cassidy stared at her dual reflection, irritated she couldn’t see beyond, but at least it let her know she needed to stop gaping at him. Turning her head away with a frown, she pointed out, “You don’t talk about these things.”
“These things?”
“Personal.” She waved a hand between the two of them. “We don’t bond, remember?”
“I asked you how you met your husband, not to sign up for a registry,” he remarked dryly. “And I decide what I talk about.”
Cassidy’s heart thudded a few times, not sure what to make of his sudden curiosity about her life; about Elijah. But he was right; if he’d asked, then he wanted an answer. So she told him, “We met at one of those fifteen-minute lube and oil change places.”
Mac’s lips twitched. “He try to convince you that you needed a new air filter?”
Cassidy smiled. “No, he didn’t work there. I took my car in for an oil change and was in the waiting room reading a book when this beautiful man walked in, decked out in bright blue biker gear—Spandex, actually—and a biker’s helmet. He looked around for a second, very focused, and headed into the bathroom. Of course, other than noticing him, I didn’t think anything of it.
“I was called to the side to go over the bullshit they always do.” She side-eyed him. “I honestly forgot all about him until I was being unloaded a bunch of crap and I heard some guy yelling behind me. When I turned, the manager was physically blocking the biker from leaving, and he waspissed. The biker had his hands up, was backing off, and trying to calm the guy down.” She shrugged. “The dude was upset the bathroom had been used by a non-customer. I made a snap decision and called out across the lobby.”
Mac glanced down at her.
“I said, ‘Hey, baby, what are you doing? Talk to this guy for me; you know I hate this part.’ And thank god he was quick on his feet because he grinned back and said, ‘Hey baby, there you are,’ gave the guy at the door an annoyed look, and walked over to me, threw his arm over my shoulder,kissed my cheek, and proceeded to dictate what would and wouldn’t be done to my car.” Cassidy’s smile was ear-to-ear as she recalled it. “Like we’d been doing it for years.”
“They bought that?”
Cassidy shrugged. “Not really, but what could they do? So, we waited it out together, exchanging names, tidbits of information, and we left together; he took his bike apart and put it in the back of my SUV, and we drove down to a coffee shop. So, we’re together—were together—because the manager was super uptight about the patron policy for his bathrooms. When we got engaged, we sent him an Edibles.”