Falling for the Groomsman (Wedding Dare, #1)(32)
She fell silent, not sure if she should continue in this getting-to-know-you type of vein. It would only make walking away from him harder in the end. But there was so much she wanted to know about him. So much she needed to figure out still. Maybe, for one night, she could forget about everything else and just…be with him.
When he lowered her onto the sleeping bag, she slid inside it and met his eyes. “Maybe. I won’t lie, I want to know more about what makes you tick.”
“I don’t know why. I’m pretty simple to figure out.” He squatted at her feet, his eyes on her. “But go ahead. Ask me something if you want. I’ll answer.”
She swallowed hard, but didn’t drop her gaze. “What’s new with your life? Anything exciting going on?”
“That’s all you’ve got?” He blinked at her, the mockery clear in his voice. “I thought for sure you’d ask me something about my dark and stormy past to prove that your theory that I’m broken is correct.”
She shook her head. “I think we talked about the past enough, don’t you?”
“I suppose we have.” He cleared his throat. “I got a job in Portland. Now that I’ve been offered the position as chief, I’ll stay there for, well, maybe forever…if I can stand the domesticity of living in the good ol’ USA. I’ll still go overseas every once in a while, but I’ll be here more than there, if that makes sense.”
She pictured her favorite show, Grey’s Anatomy. If she were completely honest with herself, she’d admit she watched it because it reminded her of Tyler. But she didn’t like being honest with herself when it came to Tyler. It was too real. “Wow, that’s great. You must work crazy hours, huh? Like Dr. McDreamy and Meredith Grey, on Grey’s?”
“Yeah, it’s even worse than you see on TV.” His fingers flexed on his knees. “But we don’t have sex in the on-call rooms. We just snore, drool, and sleep.”
She bit down on her lip. Without even trying, she could totally picture him stripping some hot nurse’s scrubs off, and she kind of wanted to stab her eyes out. “My hours aren’t quite so hectic as all that.”
He averted his eyes. “Do you…date much?”
“Not really.” More like, hardly ever. None of the men she met interested her. Not like him. She bit her tongue. “Just here and there. Like I said, not much going on in the love department for me.”
He flexed his jaw. “I’m not going to lie. I like that answer, for selfish reasons. I don’t like sharing what’s mine.”
“I’m not yours.” She laughed. “I haven’t seen you in years.”
“I know that all too well.” He glanced down at the forest floor, his shoulders tense. “I hear you have a new roommate now that Kady’s with Colt?”
“Yeah. She’s awful.” She hesitated. “I don’t know why I followed Kady out here in the first place, besides out of habit, but it’s time to live alone. To have my own place. I already told my roommate I was leaving once I get back.”
She declined to mention the fact that she was moving to Maine, but it didn’t matter anyway. It didn’t change a thing between them at all.
“Is this the first time you’ll be alone?”
“Yeah.” She glanced away, her cheeks heating. “At first I didn’t want to live by myself because it made me miss my parents too much. I got used to having Kady around, so we moved in together out of college, too. But now…”
“She’s getting married.”
“Yeah.” She lifted a hand and let it fall back to her lap. “And I’m stuck with the roommate from hell. She hasn’t paid her portion of the electric bill in three months. And she took my favorite nail polish, and denied it.”
He leaned closer and closed his fingers over hers, squeezing. “She sounds like pure evil.”
“She really is,” she said, laughing. “It’s time for me to go it alone, for once. I didn’t think I would be, but I’m excited.”
His eyes latched onto hers, understanding shining from within their green depths. “I definitely get that, more than you’d think. It’s why I left the States. I needed to be on my own. Have no one waiting on me…needing me…you know? Be free.”
“I know.” She met his eyes and held her breath. “I get it.”
And she totally did.
He held her gaze, neither one of them moving for a while. “Good.”
She knew what just happened there. She hadn’t misunderstood the weight behind those words. He’d been explaining why he left, and she really did get it. They’d been so young back then. What had she expected from him? A proposal?
That would have been a disaster.
He looked down at his lap before handing her a protein bar. Once she took it, he stood up and stalked toward the shadows with a flashlight in his hand. “Stay there. I’ll be right back.”
Her heart faltered. “Where are you going?”
“To collect firewood.”
As he disappeared into the shadows, she nibbled on the protein bar. He’d left four on the sleeping bag, but she planned on eating one. He needed to eat, too, and who knew how long it would take for them to find their way back to the resort? No matter how hungry she was she had to control her portions as best as possible.