“Thanks.”
He really needed to stop being so sweet. I was in enough trouble as it was.
“Sugar, I think we need to get something out in the open.”
My eyebrows lifted. “Okay?”
“Neither of us remember everything that happened in Vegas, obviously. But there’s one particular thing I keep wrestling with. Did we…”
“Consummate our marriage?”
He grinned, probably at my choice of words. “I gotta be honest with you. It’s killing me that I don’t remember.”
That made two of us. Maybe I was a little old-fashioned, but sex meant something to me. I didn’t like the idea that I might have slept with someone and that experience was just… gone.
“It’s been bugging me too. But I don’t remember most of what happened in your hotel room.”
“It wasn’t my room.”
“Wait, what?”
“Well, it was in the sense that I paid for it. But it wasn’t my original room. I was staying at the Four Seasons.”
My mouth dropped open. “So you woke up in a strange hotel room too?”
“I sure did.”
I laughed. “Oh my god. I assumed that was where you were staying. I wonder what made us decide to get a different hotel room when we both already had one?”
“It probably had something to do with it being a honeymoon suite.”
“Was it?”
He nodded. “You didn’t notice the white balloons?”
“No, I think I was too distracted by the stripper pole. And the fact that I couldn’t find my bra.”
“We were both a bit disoriented.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“I gotta tell you, it took me by surprise when you blurted everything out to your dad the way you did last weekend. And the thing about your um… period.”
I took a sip of my wine. “In case you hadn’t noticed, my dad’s very blunt. As he would say, he doesn’t have any patience for bullshit. He raised me on his own, so he had to take care of all the girly stuff. And he did it without acting embarrassed or anything.”
“He strikes me as a very pragmatic man.”
“Yeah, he is. He was always very open about everything. Puberty, sex, whatever. He’d buy me tampons without blinking an eye, and always bought me chocolate to go with them.”
“You said he has trouble walking. What happened to him?”
“Mostly a lifetime of hard work. He’s the type who would work through anything to get a job done, even if he shouldn’t. So sometimes he worked when he was hurt or went back too soon after an injury. He was just trying to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. But he’s paying for it now.”
“I have a great deal of respect for a man who sacrifices like that to take care of his family.”
“Me too.”
“What does he do for fun?”
I took another bite of shrimp, pondering his question. “Now? He does crossword puzzles constantly. And he loves to watch sports. It doesn’t matter what it is; if it’s competitive, he’ll watch. But when I was little, I think his favorite thing to do was go fishing.”
“Fishing would have been my first guess. He looks like a fisherman.”
“I don’t think he went very often. He worked too much. But I do remember staying with a neighbor sometimes so Dad could go fishing for the day.”
Cox nodded slowly, like he was taking that in.
“What about your mom?” I asked. “What’s she like?”
“A bit like your dad in some ways. She didn’t have an easy life. Had to work herself to the bone to provide for her son.”
“But now you take care of her?”
“I sure do.”
I smiled. “It’s nice that you can do that for her. What does she like to do for fun?”
“She plays golf.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Every chance she gets. I bought her a house on a golf course and you’d have thought it was a castle in a fairytale, she got so excited. Now she putters around everywhere in her golf cart. She even takes it to the store and her weekly trip to the beauty salon.”
“That’s really cute.”
I thought about asking if I could meet her. But… should I expect to meet his mom? I’d introduced him to my dad, but that was different. Although my dad didn’t know it yet, he had a part to play in this whole Vegas marriage thing. I wanted him to get to know Cox a little bit before I sprang the news on him that Cox was buying him a new house. But there wasn’t a real reason for me to meet Cox’s mother. It wasn’t like this marriage was real. In a few months, I’d just be a mistake he’d made after too much whiskey.
That was a depressing thought.
“If you’re finished with your dinner, I had Oliver get us something else.”
I pushed the icky feeling aside. “Oh yeah?”
He opened the last box, revealing one of my favorite desserts.
I gasped. “Creme brulée.”
Smiling, he handed me a spoon.
We finished our rooftop picnic with the decadent dessert, then packed everything up again and brought it back to his office. We split up the uneaten food so it wouldn’t go to waste and left the blanket and dishes there. He said he’d take care of them later. With leftovers in hand, I followed him back to his car.
My heart skipped on the drive to my apartment. I’d had such a nice time with him. And that kiss. And the rooftop picnic. I was feeling very swoony, my resolve to protect my heart crumbling fast.
Maybe I could risk it. Maybe Cox and I could be… more.
What would I do if he asked me to come to his place again? Would I say yes?
A part of me wanted to. Badly. I could still feel the soft pressure of his lips. The decadent glide of his tongue against mine. Had I ever been kissed like that? Not that I could remember.
But a little voice jumped up and down, trying to get my attention.
How could he ever love you, Sophie? You’ll just make a mess.
A few more turns and I could tell we were heading for my apartment. And he hadn’t asked me to come to his place.
Which was probably for the best. Because, really, how could a man like Cox ever love a hot mess like me? And if he couldn’t ever love me, but he still wanted me, it would be exactly what I was trying to avoid. I’d be a brief distraction. A blip in his smooth, sophisticated life.
A plaything. Temporary.
I didn’t want to be somebody’s tonight. Not even his. I wanted to be someone’s tomorrow.
So when he pulled up outside my building, I wasn’t too disappointed. Even though I’d embarrassingly scraped my chin, it had been a great day. And it felt like I’d seen a different side of Cox. Maybe a bit more of the real man, the one behind the bravado.
Which, okay, only made me like him more.
“Hang on, I’ll walk you up,” he said.
He got out and I wondered if I should ask him to come inside, although my apartment was tiny and unimpressive. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to see it.
He opened the door and helped me out, casting wary glances up and down the street. As we walked up to the front, I second-guessed myself. Maybe I’d been reading him all wrong. Maybe when he’d said he was just playing with me, he’d meant he was kidding. That he didn’t really want to peel off my sweaty clothes or do any of the things he’d texted that day. Maybe I’d been misreading him completely.