Page 90 of More Than Pen Pals

“I don’t think the mirror will agree with you.”

“The mirror is wrong, but I get it if you want to fix yourself up some. Do we need to stop by your place on our way to dinner?” He quickly adds, “For you to go in—not me.”

My chest feels like it’s going to explode at the way he’s already taking care of me. “I think I can make do with what’s in my purse.”

He slides me off the counter. When we step into the living room, Randall and Wendy don’t pretend they weren’t eavesdropping. I don’t care if they were.

“I’m going to use your bathroom to freshen up a bit,” I say to Randall.

“Past the kitchen on the right,” he says.

Wendy jumps to her feet. “I’ll come help.”

I grab my purse and shoes and head to the bathroom with Wendy trailing behind me. She closes the door, shuts the toilet lid, and sits while I dig my makeup out of my bag.

“Sooooo …,” she wiggles her eyebrows at me, “everything as good as you hoped it would be?”

My face heats. “Yes.”

“Everything?”

I know what she’s getting at, even if for some inexplicable reason she won’t say it. “Everything we did was great. But we didn’t doeverything.First of all, we’re in his brother’s apartment. And secondly, we won’t be doingeverythinganytime in the near future.”

She needs to know where I stand on that topic almost as much as Ash does, because I don’t need her comments and questions to feel like pressure either.

“Got it. I won’t bring it up again.”

“I don’t care if you talk about it, but I need you to know that’s not my focus right now. I’m afraid it would turn into the only focus, and we have a lot to learn about each other first.”

forty-four

“What do you think they’re talking about in there?” I ask my brother from the love seat in his living room.

“You, dingus. You really don’t know much about women, do you?”

His tone isn’t condescending. It’s more curious, so I don’t change the subject like I normally would.

“No,” I admit. I gather up my shoes and slip them on instead of looking at him. “And I’m afraid I’m going to royally jack this up because of it.”

“Hey,” Randall says. “Look at me.”

I hesitantly do.

“You might not have a lot of dating experience, but you have plenty of experience interacting with women at work and at home. You treat them with more care and respect than any man I’ve ever known. It’s quite remarkable, if I’m honest. I don’t know where you got that trait from, because it didn’t come from Dad, that’s for sure.”

I huff out a laugh. He’s not wrong there. In fact, I think my determination to treat women with fairness and respect is because our father never has. I don’t want to be anything like him.

Randall continues, “Here’s my dating advice for you. You love our sisters more than anyone else in the world, so when you’re trying to decide what to do or say or what not to say or do with Leslie, think about how you’d want a man to treat Tonya or Sonya. Then do that. Or don’t do it, as the case may be. Got it?”

I nod.

“But don’t think about the girls when you’re kissing her and, you know, doing other stuff, because that would be weird and gross.”

The horrified look on his face makes me laugh.

Randall’s look turns pensive, and he says in a quiet voice, “Don’t get mad at me for asking this, but have you ever slept with a woman?”

I drop my head into my hands. Leave it to my brother to ask me such a thing, but I don’t feel like I can lie to him about it. I also realize it’s something I should be able to talk about with the person I’m closest to.

---