Page 53 of Caught Up In You

For her.

Shit.

Wyatt swallows hard. “Francie your ex-girlfriend who’s now your best friend?”

“Yeah.”

Her eyes narrow. “When?”

Well, I opened the can—might as well shake out the worms. “First weekend in June.”

She sets her wineglass down on the counter to another rumble of thunder.

“Owen, we need to talk about what this is.”

My heart starts to thud like I’ve got my own thunderstorm in the center of my chest.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Not that. Not me being your date to your ex-girlfriend’s engagement party five weeks from now.”

The thunderstorm blows from my chest into my brain, my thoughts flashing like lightning as I work to save this moment.

“Which part bothers you? The fact that Francie and I used to date? That I asked you to go? Or that it’s five weeks from now?”

“I…well…” Her nose scrunches, her eyebrows furrowing as she fumbles for an answer. “Yes?”

The hesitation, the questioning lift of her voice, shows me that I haven’t scared her off. Not yet. Because Wyatt Hart is nothing if not stubborn. If she didn’t want to do this with me, she wouldn’t still be standing here. She wouldn’t have come in the first place. We just need to get on the same page.

“First of all, I didn’t ask you to be my date. I asked you to go with me. It’s going to be fun, I don’t want to go alone, andI think you’d like Francie. I want to take you even if I never manage to get you into bed,” I tell her, and the tension in her brow begins to ease. “I meant it when I said I don’t need this to be a relationship. I want to be around you. I want to receive your weird non sequitur texts. I want to flirt with you shamelessly even if it never comes to anything.

“I don’t want to trick you, Wyatt, or make you guess. We can decide what we want this to be. Right now. You can tell me the rules. Tell me what you want to call it. All I want is you.”

She nibbles at her lip, but the tension in her brow doesn’t return. “What if I can’t…”

“Whatever you have to give me, Wyatt, I’ll take it.”

She inhales, holds the breath for a moment before she blows it out with a little nod.

“Okay,” she says, then again, more sure. “Okay. Then we need an agreement.”

I nod. “Okay, let’s talk terms.”

“No labels,” she says.

“Agree.”

“No commitments,” she says.

“Okay.”

She pauses, then adds, “No flowers.”

I scoff. “Seriously?”

She gives me a stern look. “That’s boyfriend shit. I was serious, Owen—flowers make me sneeze. I’m allergic to boyfriends.”

I shake my head and let out a little chuckle, but I agree. “No flowers,” I say, and she appears satisfied. She reaches for another Circus Peanut, but I’m not done. “I have one condition too.”

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