Page 90 of Adoring Delaney

“Can I say something without you getting pissed off?” I asked Carter.

“Can’t answer that without knowing what you wanna talk about.”

“Steve.”

“Don’t go there, Laney.”

I had to. There were a few things we had to discuss.

“You know I work with him.”

“Yep.”

“So when school starts next month, I’m gonna see him.”

Carter was quiet for a long time. Perhaps bringing up Steve while Carter was taking me on a date wasn’t the best timing.

“Sorry. Maybe we should talk about this later,” I muttered.

“No good time to talk about him.” Then a pause before he asked, “Has he been bothering you?”

“Bothering me?”

“Calling you? Texting you?”

Carter was weirdly calm, he sounded more thoughtful than angry.

“Last time I spoke to him on the phone was when I was at the beach. The conversation was a little forced and distant, but he was checking on me and asking how my vacation was going. He’s texted me once since I’ve been home, asking about you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. He knew we had history. After what happened at Tuesday’s it was hard to miss. When he broke things off with me, he was gentle about it and told me to find what I needed to be happy.”

“Right.”

“He was asking if I’d found it and I told him I had.”

“Did he know why you went to the beach? Why you were there alone?”

“No,” I whispered. “I didn’t tell him anything. He knew I was holding back. He’d asked why I was so sad, but I never told him.”

I hadn’t told anyone. I wasn’t strong enough to talk about the baby. Thinking on it, I didn’t have much to give anyone, not without Carter by my side.

“He gonna be a problem when you go back to work?”

“For me? No. He’s asked me out plenty over the last two years but never pushed when I’d turned him down. Now that he knows about you, he won’t ask again. He’s a nice guy.”

“Right.” One word dripping in sarcasm said it all. He didn’t think Steve was a nice guy and I smartly wasn’t going to convince him. If the roles were reversed and he’d dated some woman, then tried to tell me she was nice, I wouldn’t have been happy about it either.

Time to move on.

“Thanks for taking me out tonight.”

“I’m slackin’ on the date nights. This is only number two.”

My belly flipped. Carter Lenox keeping track of dates. I never thought I’d see the day. It was a miracle I could smile at all after what’d happened earlier. But there I was sitting in Carter’s truck, dressed up, going on my second date with him, and I was doing it—smiling.

“Thank you,” I whispered close to Carter’s ear so he could hear me over the music. “This was just what I needed.”

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