His lips twitched. Sparring with Alex always made him a bit giddy. “So glad you’re enjoying yourself at my expense.”
“Is it just my imagination, or have you decided to pull the stick from your ass?”
“Maybe.” He waited a tick before adding, “So I can beat you with it.”
“Three! Three jokes in a day!” She laughed, and it was a sweet, tinkling sound that burrowed under his skin. Her smile was enchanting and so guileless. Just like the woman herself.
What must it be like to live life so free and open? To have nothing to hide? To not couch every word or worry about every move for fear one slip would tell the world just how abnormal you really were?
“Let me see if I have this straight,” she said. “You think if we sleep together, it’ll be so good we’ll be flooded with hormones. Which will either (a) have you falling in love with me.” Her quirked brow could only be described as coquettish. “An outcome I could definitely see. Because even though I haven’t done it before, I’ve been studying up. I think, given a little practice, I can master most of the skills. You’d be putty in my hands.”
He refused to let his mind dwell on what she meant by studying up.
Or at least he tried not to let his mind dwell.
Against his will, images of her flipping through the pages of a sexy novel or glued to a screen watching X-rated videos flashed through his head.
Putty? Shhyeah. If by “putty” she means “painfully, achingly hard.”
“Or (b) it’ll have me falling in love with you,” she continued, oblivious to his brain having spontaneously exploded to leak gray matter from his ears. “Which is probably a little less likely. Because while I think you’re an exquisite example of male prowess, you talk too little. You’re alone too much. And you have the most annoying habit of leaving dental floss half-dangling out of the bathroom trash can. I mean, seriously? Why can’t you get the whole piece of string in?”
One of the many drawbacks of living at the beach house was there were only two bathrooms. Privacy wasn’t a concept anyone on Wayfarer Island held dear. At least not if they wanted to keep their sanity.
Mason opened his mouth to point out that good oral hygiene should be applauded, not berated. But she went on before he could get a word in.
“But regardless of who falls in love with whom, I’m assuming your contention is that the other party will end up hurt. And you’d rather head that eventuality off at the pass. However, what you’ve failed to account for is what would happen if we fell in love with each other.”
Someone shot a cannonball into his throat. The sucker lodged directly beneath his Adam’s apple, so his voice was barely a whisper. “That’d be the worst outcome of all.”
She blinked in confusion.
“Then we’d both end up hurt,” he explained.
For a couple of seconds, she said nothing. Then she shook her head like Meat shaking off water after having gone in for his daily dose of seaweed. The stupid mutt loved to eat the stuff. Then he liked to barf it back up on the wooden floorboards of the porch.
“Sorry.” Her voice was flat. “Are you speaking Martian? Nothing about that makes any sense. Why would we both end up hurt if we loved each other?”
He dropped his eyes to his clasped hands. They were hard and scarred, proof of the life he’d lived. The life that’d made him what he was. Who he was.
“You wanna get married someday?” he asked gently. “You wanna have kids and make a family and do that whole American pie thing?”
She didn’t answer immediately, forcing him to lift his gaze to her face. He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she was even more beautiful in the glow of the bedside lamps. They caught the honey-blond strands in her hair and made them shine like spun gold.
“I’m a little leery of the institution, if you want the truth,” she admitted. “But I think a lot of modern women are. I read an article recently that attributed the decline in the marriage rate to the uptick of women entering the workforce, but still being restricted by traditional gender roles. Basically, the author’s point was not only are women supposed to bring home the bacon, but they’re also supposed to fry it up, get the kids ready for bed, and make sure the laundry is folded.” She lifted a finger. “Another article I read—”
Mason watched the play of emotions over her face as she delved into the subject. Her eyes were bright. Her cheeks flushed a lovely pink. And her Kewpie-doll mouth wrapped itself around the words.
When he realized he’d stopped listening, he gave himself a mental slap and once more attended to her monologue.
“Modern woman is the most dissatisfied woman in history. But that’s not to say I don’t want a life partner. I’m a romantic at heart. I like the idea of finding someone who’ll wake up and choose me every day. Someone I’ll wake up and choose every day. But I don’t think that requires a legal document.”
He opened his mouth to press home his point, but she lifted her finger again and kept at it.
“Although, there are financial incentives to making it legal. Tax benefits and whatnot. Did you know it behooves couples to have large income disparities? The spouse making less money can pull the spouse making more money into a lower tax bracket. And it certainly benefits them to have dependents. Which brings me around to the second part of your question. Kids? I think I want some someday. Or maybe just one.” She pushed her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose. “The birth rate is declining right along with the marriage rate. People still use that whole two-point-three statistic when they’re talking about the American family. But as of 2018, that number has decreased to one-point-eight.” She cocked her head. “What are you smiling at?”
“You,” he admitted. “Not sure I ever heard someone say that many words without taking a breath.”
She grimaced. “Yes. A boy in high school used to call me Gabby McGabberson. Which I’m pretty sure he meant to be an insult. However!” Up went her finger for the third time. “The joke was on him. His name was Richard Johnson.”
When Mason frowned, she explained. “Dick Johnson? He was a penis no matter which way you sliced him.”
A wicked little smile pulled her lips tight, and Mason felt his own twitching in response. Then he cleared his throat, determined to circle back around to the subject.
“I’ll never have a wife or a life partner or a family.” He watched unhappily as her smile faded and her eyes darkened.
For a long moment she said nothing. Finally, her voice too soft, she murmured, “Your first marriage really did a number on you, huh?”
His tone was dark when he told her, “This has nothing to do with Sarah. I promise you that.” After all, he thought, it wasn’t Sarah’s fault I became who I am. “Can’t you and I agree to be friends and leave it at that?”