Page 53 of All Night with the Cowboy
Lauren smiled and touched her sister’s hand to reassure her. “I’m fine. I’m just thinking about the upcoming season and the new players.” She’d sworn Casey to secrecy, not wanting Hannah to know how heartbroken she was—the last thing she needed was it getting back to her mom and then having to deal with her on the phone. But sitting across from her sister, it was hard to keep her poker face on.
“Sorry, honey, I call bullshit. What’s really going on? You’ve been like this ever since you got back from Fiji. Did Tanner do something to hurt you?”
Lauren almost choked on her coffee as she spluttered her reply. “No! No, he didn’t do anything to hurt me, not like that. This has nothing to do with Tanner, I’m just tired. And I have the holiday blues I guess.”
Hannah was silent as she finished her coffee and ate a forkful of the slice of carrot cake they were sharing. But when she looked up, her eyebrows were arched and Lauren knew that her sister’s intuition meant she wasn’t about to give up.
“I don’t believe for a second that’s all that’s going on, Lauren.” She sighed. “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine, but don’t lie to me.”
Lauren looked into her sister’s eyes. She’d been wanting to tell her, from the moment she’d arrived home, but confessing what had happened, actually saying it out loud meant she’d have to admit that it had happened. Keeping it in her head meant she could pretend it was a dream, a fantasy like the millions of fantasies she’d had over the years about Tanner.
“Lauren? Oh shit, don’t go crying on me! I didn’t mean to be a pushy–”
“I didn’t want to tell you. I mean I did, but I…” Lauren’s voice trailed off.
“Holy shit, you actually did sleep with him, didn’t you? You guys were back on the entire time!”
“Shhh,” Lauren hissed, looking over her shoulder. “It wasn’t—well, just stop!”
“Ohmygod, you’ve been holding out on me! I can’t believe it!”
Lauren felt her cheeks ignite; all her skin flaming like it was on fire. She took a big breath. “He was such as asshole to start with, but you know how we always were together, there was that spark between us and we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. But it was just supposed to be a fling.”
Hannah rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I remember. I think weallremember what you and Tanner were like.”
Lauren flushed all over again at the memory of Tanner’s touch, of his kisses, of running her fingers down his back as they made love, being tucked up in bed against his chest afterward. “One thing led to another and we just, well…”
“Ended up naked?” Hannah hissed. “I’ve got two kids, I know what happens, silly.”
Lauren burst out laughing and her sister joined in, and soon she was wiping away tears as she hiccupped and put her hand over her mouth. Trust Hannah to make her open up and get her smiling again.
“So what happens now?” she asked.
Lauren’s eyebrows shot up. “What do you meanwhat happens now?”
“Well, are you guys back together? Or are you just taking it slowly?” She hesitated and frowned. “Or did you break up? Is that the problem? What the hell is going on to make you so glum?”
Lauren shook her head. “No, we’re not together. It was just a holiday fling—you know, getting it out of our systems once and for all. There was no breakup because it was never a relationship to begin with.”
Hannah didn’t look convinced. “Hold up. You reunited with the love of your life, you had crazy hot sex,” her sister laughed. “Hold up. Itwascrazy hot, right?”
Lauren sighed. There was no point in lying. “Yeah, it was crazy hot.”
“So all that and you just, what, said goodbye at the airport and that’s it?”
“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.” It sounded stupid now that she was saying it out loud, but having fun had seemed so simple at the time. “We’d agreed to goseparate ways when the vacation was over, and that’s what we did.”
“That’s ridiculous. You guys were made for each other and if Mom and Dad hadn’t forced you apart, you might still be together.”
Lauren could have pointed out that they were kids back then, that she was happy with her job and the way things had turned out. Yeah, she would have liked to look into a crystal ball and see if she might have been happy with Tanner, but chances were he’d have tired of her, or his friends would have given him shit for only being with one girl. She wasn’t about to start wallowing in what could have been, not now. And besides, she wasn’t about to make her mom feel guilty about potentially keeping her away from the man she could have loved for the rest of her life. That was the exact reason she hadn’t told anyone in her family.
“You’re sure you’ve done the right thing? I mean, what does he think?” Hannah asked.
“He thinks I broke his heart back then and he wasn’t going to let that happen again.” Lauren drained the last of her coffee, even though it was almost cold now. “Seriously, he wasn’t interested in anything more than having some fun, and it was fun, so I can’t complain. We were both on the same page about what we wanted, and I told him the exact same thing—that I didn’t want anything more than a fling.”
“You just didn’t expect to fall in love with him all over again, did you?” Hannah asked in a soft voice as she reached over and took her hand, squeezing her fingers gently.
Lauren bit down on her lip, trying not to think about how much she missed Tanner. He’d been such a jackasson the plane when all she’d been trying to do was look out for him, but it didn’t change the fact that she still cared deeply for him. She always had and there wasn’t a switch that could be flicked to just turn off feelings like that.
