Satisfaction Guaranteed(24)

“And that’s good? You like that?”

“We actually have a lot in common, being in the same business. So it’s kind of cool to bond over animal welfare. I’m close with my mom, and was definitely close with her growing up, so maybe this is just my time to connect with him more.”

And that’s another reminder to resist the woman. This is her chance to spend time with her dad in a way she wasn’t able to growing up. Far be it from me to get in the way. If my dad were here, I know I’d want to spend time with him.

I raise a glass. “To family. To fathers.”

She lifts her champagne. “To the ones we have, and the ones in our hearts.”

My throat tightens, but I swallow past the roughness and take a drink. “Tell me more about your mom. What’s she like?” I ask, thinking that will be the safer parent to talk about.

Sloane’s eyes twinkle. “You’ll understand everything about me when I tell you. My mom’s a hippy, a laid-back animal lover who rescued every three-legged dog and tailless cat she found.”

“The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

“I was definitely cut from the same cloth, and I’m sure I wound up in rescue because of her rather than because of Dad. We always rescued animals growing up. My mom would see a lost dog and move heaven and earth to return it to where it belonged. But I’m also a lot like my father. He’s more intense. Always working. Always thinking.”

“That’s exactly like Doug.”

“He’s more wound up than her. More type A, and I’m the same in that way. I’ve never been good at getting out of my own head. I’m always thinking about the next thing I want to do. For a while when I was much younger, I thought I wanted to be an actress. I was even in a play in college.”

I smile, imagining Sloane onstage. “I wouldn’t have been able to take my eyes off you.”

She scoffs. “Oh, you would’ve, because I was terrible at it. You would have cringed.”

I arch a brow. “Are you sure?”

“I was the worst,” she says, finishing her champagne as I empty my Scotch. We order another round, and she returns to the subject. “I was terrible. I had a heartfelt speech to deliver in an original play I was in. And I just wasn’t present. I was thinking about what papers I had due the next day, or what causes I was going to work on next. I wasn’t fully invested. So I chose to do something I could put all of my head and my heart into at the same time.”

“And are you happy giving all of your head and heart to rescue?”

She nods vigorously. “Yes. Definitely yes. I love it. Thank you for encouraging me to do it.”

“We were instrumental to each other, it seems.” Truly slides us the fresh drinks, and I knock back more Scotch. “So what about you? What did you do over the last seven years? And please don’t mention Plant or Brick or anyone like that.”

She shoots me a flirty smile, then mimes zipping her lips. She unzips them, though, to talk. “I got a master’s, and I worked in some other charities in development, and that’s how I knew for sure I wanted to open my own rescue.”

“And presumably you’ve been completely single the entire time and have never dated anyone?” I ask, deadpan and praying.

Her expression is 100 percent serious. “Not a soul. I absolutely didn’t date anyone at all.”

I lift my glass. “Excellent. I will drink to that.”

She smacks my arm. “And yet it’s okay for you to have been a man about town?”

I arch a brow. “How do you know I was a man about town?”

She gives me a thorough once-over. “Look at you. That’s really your flaw. You’re too good-looking. And you’re too charming. You’ve had women all over you, haven’t you?”

“Is that a flaw? Also, do you really want me to answer that?”

Sighing, she shakes her head and takes a drink. “I don’t really want to know.” She takes a breath then nods. “Actually, I do. Were you involved with anyone serious? I do want to know that.”

I scratch my jaw, remembering Lucy, Kelly, Lilah.

“There were a few women who I was serious about, but no one I saw myself having a long future, or a meaningful one, with.” I brace myself to ask the same. “What about you?”

She shakes her head. “There were a couple of guys here and there. You meet someone, you think it’s going to work out, you think you have a lot in common, and then it turns out that he wants to spend his whole weekend watching sports.”

“Hey, now!”

“I’m just saying, you’re flawed.”

“And you’ve discovered my flaw evidently.” I narrow my eyes. “But do you truly think I don’t listen to the little voice on my shoulder?”

“I don’t know. Do you ignore it? What’s it been telling you tonight?”

“It’s been telling me that you and I are becoming friends,” I say, but my tone isn’t entirely friendly.

Her lips curve up. “Is that so? We’re friends?”

“Feels that way.” But it actually feels like we’re in Tahiti again. And tonight is its own separate night, apart from time and space and reason.

“It does feel that way,” she agrees softly. “Do you think we found that alternate universe you mentioned?”