Crazy Girl(45)

Her features tightened in frustration. “It’s called sympathy, Wren.”

“No. Not what you were doing. There’s a difference between feeling sorry or upset for someone, and taking someone else’s problems and absorbing the negative feelings from them as your own.”

Shaking her head, clearly perturbed with my assessment, she huffed, “It made me sad. Sorry for making you uncomfortable.” I’d offended her; hurt her feelings. I didn’t want to hurt her; that wasn’t my intention. But being around someone so emotionally volatile wasn’t easy. Trying to be in a relationship with one would be hard. We all had days when we were off; bad day at work made us pissed off and grumpy. We all had sad shit in our pasts; things that got us down. I needed a partner that could handle that. I wasn’t the easiest man to deal with, and I worried Hannah might crack under the pressure of…well…me. As I said, we’d both have to adjust if this was going to work. We both made up for our shortcomings in other ways. This would be one of them.

I nudged her, letting her know it was okay. “Pity is not my thing, okay? Cancer,” I explained, jutting my head toward the picture of my mother. “She fought a good fight, though.”

“Your dad?” she asked.

“Alive and well. Still the best man I know,” I told her.

She must have sensed, finally, I wanted to move past this conversation because she glanced over the wall of frames and sighed. “You look like you’ve lived an eventful life,” she said. “You must have a million amazing memories.”

I nodded in agreement. “I do. Too many to count.” I had been lucky in that department. I lacked many things in life, but experiences were not one of them.

Bobbing her head a few times, she turned to face me, a smile plastered on her lips that looked forced. “I should probably go.”

Taking her hand, I pressed it on my chest, as I obnoxiously pouted out my lower lip. “Don’t leave me. I don’t want you to go,” I begged, feigning agony.

She twisted her mouth as if fighting laughter. “I’m sure you’ll survive.”

“Seriously though. No pressure, but you can stay tonight if you want.” I decided I should reword that. “I’d like it if you stayed tonight.” That sounded better, and it was true. I’d enjoyed our day together.

Biting her lower lip, she looked away from me, mulling it over. When she cut her dark gaze back to me, she nodded once. “Okay.”

Taking her beer from her, I sat both our bottles on the counter, then turned back to face her. “I can’t stop thinking about last night,” I admitted.

Letting her head drop, she smiled. “Me either,” she said quietly. “It was…” She looked up at me, “You were…”

“We were,” I corrected her as I slid my hand around the back of her neck, gripping it gently. Her lips parted as her gaze flicked from my eyes to my mouth and back. “I’m going to take you upstairs and take my time with you…I mean,” I shook my head, “that’s what I’d like to do.”

Reaching up, she traced her thumb across the seam of my lips. “I’d like you to do that, too.”





“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.”

-Aristotle





I was sore. In the best way. It had been two days since I’d left Wren’s house, and I could still feel what he did to me, though the delicious ache was subsiding.

“What do you think?” Deanna asked as she held up a darling frilly dress for a newborn baby girl.

I sighed as I rubbed the material between my fingers. “She’d be the bossiest little baby ever.”

“She’ll put all those other baby bitches to shame,” Courtney added as she folded a tiny pink shirt she’d just looked at and placed it back on the shelf.

I laughed. Courtney always said the best and worst things. God, I loved her.

Deanna shushed her. “You can’t call babies bitches,” she scolded in a hushed voice, looking around to see if anyone had heard, even though she was smiling.

“Oh, I can,” Courtney insisted in a serious falsetto. “And I will.”

Still chuckling at my nutty friend, I asked, “Do you feel like it’s a girl?”

Deanna hung the dress back on the rack. We’d only come to Target after the two of them got off work to start a list of items to add to her baby registry. Kate couldn’t make it because Will had to work and there was no one to watch Willow.

“No.” She shook her head. “I feel like it’s a boy.” She twisted her mouth. “But I think that’s just because I want a boy…for Allen.” After a pause, she looked up and glanced at Courtney and me before widening her eyes. “A girl would be great, too,” she quickly defended. “Honestly, a healthy baby is the only thing I want.”

“Chill,” Courtney told her as she patted her arm. “It’s okay to hope for a boy. We know you’d love a girl just as much.”

“Sorry. I just feel bad. I shouldn’t want one more than the other. All babies are miracles.”

We cooed over the hundreds of baby clothes and items, making a preliminary list of all the things Deanna would want or need, most of which she wouldn’t need, but she was a brand-new mother-to-be and, according to Courtney, this was what first-time mothers do—buy unnecessary stuff. As we were looking at breast pumps, Deanna started up a chat with a woman who, judging by her large belly bump, was quite a bit farther along than her. While they chatted, Courtney and I stood at the end of the aisle and waited.