Page 20 of Trouble in Love
Cowboy: Guess who’s coming back to Sydney?
Cowboy: Actually, you don’t need to guess. It’s me and I want to, no, need to see you again. We have unfinished business.
Cowboy: Jas. Answer me.
Cowboy: Not giving up till you say yes.
Cowboy: I can go all night.
Cowboy: In relation to sending messages. But with sex too. Wink emoji.
Cowboy: Jas?
Cowboy: Okay, maybe I am giving up. But only for now because I don’t wanna be a crazy stalker type. I will try again tomorrow.
Cowboy: But also still here if you change your mind.
Cowboy: Which is absolutely your right. Big advocate for full consent and women’s rights and equal pay and all that.
Cowboy: Princess Jasmine. Sorry for messaging so many times last night. And for this one, but I was out for a run and couldn’t stop thinking about you.
“Shit!”
I’d sulked like a moldy old potato. Wept on cold concrete that smelled like broccoli, and all that time I could have been enjoying consequence-free sexting. What a fucking idiot. I read them again and again, each text broken down, analyzed, and cross-referenced, my desire increasing with the pounding of my heart.
This guy is dangerous, horny, hot, and sweet.
Maybe too sweet.
I shouldn’t see him again.
That’s why I absolutely will.
Luca
Five days of five adults, four kids and a Teddy had me itching to get back to Sydney. And not for the reasons I’d have suspected when I first walked through the doors and was hit with a thunderous roar of domesticity.
The beach house Finn and Scarlett designed for Nate and Evie’s tribe was stunning and the two-bedroom guest cottage that Teddy, Ash, and I shared a was equally impressive. The babies—well, babies and toddlers—slept soundly each night. When awake, their squeaks and squawks, giggles, and cuddles were nothing but cute. The late-night conversations I shared with Evie as she nursed proved the boys to be right. She was generous, funny, and warm. Her bark was worse than her bite … most of the time.
There were also frequent visits by Iris, Ben, and Shelby, who were Finn and Scarlett’s kids. Ben was a cool dude who was fairly quiet, surfed a lot, and was intensely protective of Iris and his little sister Shelby, but for the most part, kept to himself. Baby Shelby wasn’t a baby; she was called baby because she bore thename of Nate’s late sister, Finn’s first girlfriend, and Iris’s birth mother. It was a complex situation that took me three days to get my head around. The junior Shelby hid whenever she saw me, so I hadn’t seen much of her personality, just a hint of her wavy red locks as she cowered behind someone more familiar.
Iris was the polar opposite and seemed enamored with me at first sight. When she wasn’t telling Teddy to stop calling her Iwis, a cruel but funny throwback to her past speech impediment, she was pounding me with questions about hockey, New York, and what I liked in a woman. Again, super cute. But still, I needed out.
Surrounded by all this, thoughts of Jasmine consumed me. I was all kinds of twisted and would undoubtedly receive a restraining order if I continued to contact her with the frequency and lewdness matching my thoughts. For a week there was no reply, but as I jogged along the beach with the already scorching Aussie sun belting into my face, I struck gold.
Jasmine: Persistent little thing, aren’t you?
Me: Persistent, yes. Little? Well, I think you might remember that there’s nothing little about me.
Jasmine: Up yourself much?
Hmm. I’ll have to ask Nate what that means when I get home.
Me: I don’t know if you read it already, but my Aussie friends are taking me to a football match in Sydney. Tonight. We’ll be staying at the same hotel. Please, please. Can I see you?
Jasmine: I’d love to, Cowboy. But I have a rule. One-night stands, no matter how good, remain just that. One night.
Me: That’s a stupid rule.
