“I’m sorry that happened to you, Dee.”
I shrug as if it wasn’t one of the most painful experiences of my life to hear—through the grapevine—that my boyfriend married someone else and let me hear about it from others. Not to mention what happened after that.
“Did you ever talk to him again?”
“Nope. What’s there to say? ‘I hope you and your wife will be very happy together’?”
Wyatt blows out a deep breath. “What an awful thing to do to someone you love.”
“Of course, now I’m left to wonder if he ever actually loved me. He’s been texting me lately, apologizing, telling me there’re things I need to know about what happened, it wasn’t me, it was him, et cetera.”
“Why haven’t you blocked him, sweetheart?” he asks gently.
“I know I should have, but I just never did. I never expected to hear from him again. In some ways, it’s vindicating to hear he has regrets. And the evil, nasty side of me was happy to hear the marriage didn’t work out.”
“You don’t have an evil, nasty side.”
“If the thoughts I was having about her and them together are any indication, yes, I do.”
“Anyone would feel that way after what he put you through.”
And he didn’t know the half of what I went through. “One of his friends called me a couple of weeks later. He told me it happened during a drunken night out in Vegas, that it didn’t mean anything and that he was sure Marcus would tell me that himself before too much longer.”
“But he never did.”
“Nope. It was like he and I had never happened. It was just… over.”
All at once, I snap out of it and realize I’m doing a terrible job of convincing Wyatt he needs to experience love. That thought makes me laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“It just occurred to me that I’m not exactly selling you on how great it is to be in love.”
Since we’re stopped at a light, I get to see the smile that stretches across his sinfully handsome face. “Marcus is an idiot for letting you go.” He brings my hand to his lips and kisses the back of it. “And I, for one, am extremely thankful he got drunk and married the skank.”
I start laughing and worry I might never stop. Hearing Wyatt call her that… I was already on my way to loving this guy, but that just about seals the deal for me. “She’s probably a perfectly nice person,” I say when I finally quit laughing. “We don’t know her at all. She may not deserve that nickname.”
“She married someone else’s boyfriend and then stayed married to him after he sobered up and probably told her he’d made a mistake. That’s the definition of skank, in my opinion.”
“No kidding, right? I mean, she had to know about me. We’d been together on and off for years. It was hardly a secret. And what did he say the next day when he came to and found himself married? Was he freaking out? Was he worried about me finding out? Did he even think of me?”
I stop myself because there’s no better way to ruin a new thing than by dwelling on an old thing that’s better off left in the past. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to go on about it. I was well on my way to being totally over it when I came home for Car and Jason’s wedding and heard about his regrets. I was doing much better, so I don’t want you to think I’m still messed up over him. I’m not.”
“I don’t think that. I think you loved the guy, he disappointed you profoundly, and then just when you were getting back on your feet, he ends up in the hospital, possibly because you wouldn’t take his calls. I understand how that brings it all back up again.”
“It did.” His understanding touches me, and I appreciate that he isn’t acting like a threatened fool, the way some guys would while hearing about a painful breakup with another man. “Anyway, thanks for listening.”
“Of course.” He glances at me, which I can see out of the corner of my eye. I’m so tuned in to him that I feel like every breath he takes registers with me. “Could I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“That night after the wedding, was that like a rebound?”
“No!”
“Not even kinda?”
“The one-night stand part of it maybe, but not the rest. That was about you and how much I liked you after hanging out at the rehearsal dinner and wedding. We had fun, and you were so…”
“What?”
“Attentive.”
“I was hot for you from the second I met you.”
My laughter sounds like a girly giggle. “That was extremely flattering, especially after feeling so discarded.”
“Anyone who had you and let you go is the biggest kind of idiot, and you know, it’s kind of satisfying that he’s eating his heart out over it. He should be.”
“It’s very sexy when you take my side like that.”
“Is it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I’m very much on your side.”
We pull into Denny’s parking lot. Before he lets go of my hand, Wyatt kisses me again. When we get out of the car, he puts his arm around me to walk inside. I love the way he doles out affection so naturally.
I lean into him like a needy puppy. Did I just compare myself to a puppy? If the analogy fits…
The hostess shows us to a booth.
Wyatt sits across from me, and the loss of his body heat leaves me chilled. Or it’s just that the air-conditioning on deep freeze mode.
“It’s like a meat locker in here,” he says as he scans the menu.
“I’m freezing.”
“Come over here. I’ll keep you warm.”
He doesn’t have to ask twice. I bring my menu with me when I move to his side and snuggle up to him.
“I have to be honest with you,” he says.
“I thought you’d already told me your deepest, darkest secret.”
“This one is about couples who sit on the same side of a booth.”
“What about them?”
“I’ve always thought that was so stupid like can’t they get through one meal without being all over each other?”
“And now?”
“I get it.” He kisses the top of my head. “The time it would take to eat is too long not to touch you.”
“So far, you’re doing an excellent job of being in a relationship.”
“Am I?”
“Uh-huh. Step one, make the woman feel special, listen to her when she goes on and on about her ex, say all the right things while making her feel sexy and desired. Are you sure you haven’t done this before?”
He’s making me crazy with kisses to my neck that have me leaning in even closer. “I’m very sure. I’ve never met anyone who made me want to turn my life upside down so I could be with her all the time.”
“Is that how you feel about me?”
“Hell yes. I’m ready to give notice at my job in Phoenix, and I haven’t even had the interview here yet.”
I turn toward him. “Don’t do that.” I love his smile so much, the way it makes his dark blue eyes sparkle and leaves deep grooves in his cheeks. “You have the most beautiful face.” I run my thumb over one of the grooves.