Crazy Girl(35)

Shaking it off, I walked through the house and nodded, adding my two cents when invited. The realtor probably wondered who I was to Wren, but I simply smiled and spoke when spoken to. The home was as nice on the inside as the outside, with a view of the water from almost every room. When we left, as we rode down the road, I asked him, “Are you going to take it?”

“You think I should?”

I frowned a little. We were away from Linda. He didn’t need to ask for my opinion anymore in order to be polite. Why was he still asking what I thought? This was his life, his move. The opinion of a woman he barely knew, and what he did know of her he thought was pure insanity, was irrelevant. Did I have an opinion? Hell yes, I did. If I were him I’d have moved in yesterday. It didn’t upset me so much that he was asking for my opinion, but more that asking me made it seem liked he cared about my opinion, as in…I mattered. Which was ridiculous. It was too soon. I knew I didn’t matter, and I wanted to steer clear of even the idea that I might. That would only set me up for disappointment.

“Would you live there?” he pushed when I didn’t respond.

“If it were me making the decision for myself, not you, yes. I would.”

“So you like the place?”

My stomach tightened. Why did my mind have to fracture into a million thoughts? Did he really care if I liked the place? Or was he trying to see if I was impressed by it? Was this his way of seeing what a prime bachelor pad it would be? He couldn’t be that nice.

“Yeah,” I murmured. “It was a really nice place.” My mind traveled back to the water, the pier, my childhood memories drifting like fog through my head. Who wouldn’t be happy living on the water? There was something so damn healing about it. How many days as a young girl had I floated in the lake and stared up at the sky—blue by day, starlit by night? How many times had I jumped off into the deep end and sank to the bottom where the water was coolest, settling on the murky bottom like an anchor and waited to see how long I could hold my breath? All I’d ever wanted back then was to be Ariel from The Little Mermaid; she’d wished for legs to walk land…I’d have given her mine to have her tail and spent my life weightless in the water. My first kiss as a girl had been in the water. I was five—I know, I was a hussy—but I’d never forgotten it. The fishing and late nights sitting on the end of the pier with our feet dangling off the corners watching fireflies float in the dark and listening to the crickets and frogs…God, the water was a place of so much peace. I didn’t know Wren well, but I couldn’t imagine anyone not loving that place. And I didn’t know his motivation behind asking me for my opinion, or if there was any motivation at all. Not surprisingly, I was overthinking it. I knew I was a highly skeptical and over-analytical person—maybe he was really only asking to make conversation. But he asked, so I answered. “I would love to have a place like that.”



The town Wren lived in was quaint with a storybook charm to it. The local shops ranged from antiques to insurance businesses, all in perfect little brick buildings with huge front windows. When we pulled in at an inn, I wasn’t sure what Wren had in mind but as he drove around the back to park, a small neon sign above the back door read: PUB, clueing me in.

Inside, the entrance led down to a basement, the brick walls painted white giving it a clean look, yet somehow maintaining the feel of underground. Which was so much cooler. We made our way down the stairs and my hand started to sweat when he held mine in his. I quickly wiped it on my clothing once we made it to the bottom. Taking a seat at the tiny bar strewn with white lights, a beautiful, young bartender greeted us, taking our drink orders. She looked like me a decade before. The way she looked at him, I could tell there was an attraction there. I wondered if there had been something between them once upon a time, or if maybe she was simply like I was, drawn to him. What was it about the alpha male that made women willing to toss aside their inhibitions—ignore those blaring warning signs in our heads that roared at us to steer clear?

The bartender took our drink orders and busied herself making them. And I breathed a bit easier. “They have the best burgers here,” Wren informed me.

Looking at the beer tap, I noticed several Star Wars magnets on it. “Is the owner a Star Wars fan?” I asked, pointing to them.

“Oh, I gave them those. I’m kind of obsessed with it, the movies, the franchise…Stormtroopers mostly.”

I smirked, nodding. That would make sense. I could see why he liked it. I’d seen the bullets at his house. Probably enjoyed it as a kid. I did find it humorous that a man with so many…manly qualities still had boyish interests. Here was this macho male who loved Star Wars and Xbox. Just another layer to the complexity that was Wren. But I dug it.

“Does that turn you off?” he asked.

“Why would it?”

He shrugged. “Just checking. We might have had to end this date right now if it did. I need a woman that will support my Star Wars fetish.”

I laughed as the bartender slid our drinks to us, noticing she never quite made eye contact with me. Constantly analyzing people’s behavior was sometimes a pain in the ass. Okay. A lot of pain in the ass. It usually left me thinking people were up to no good. Which was often true, but still left me suspicious way more than was considered healthy. “Well, don’t worry,” I assured him. “I think we’re safe. For now.”