Page 85 of In Your Wildest Dreams
“Like prison?” Her eyes get a little twinkle back as she jokes.
“Exactly.”
She laughs again, then grows quiet.
“Sorry. If you don’t want to talk about him, we don’t have to.”
“I get it. How could I date someone that’s so awful?”
“Basically.”
“He wasn’t awful to me. Not at the beginning.”
My body tenses at the implication of those words. Not at the beginning means he was awful to her later. I knew that. Hell, I witnessed it. Still pisses me off.
“What about you? How’d you meet your last girlfriend?”
“At a party. One of Jack’s parties, actually.”
“How long were you together?”
“Eh…” I run a hand along my jaw. “It was kind of on and off.”
“You broke up and got back together a lot?”
“No.” Shit, I hadn’t really thought it through that I’d have to talk about my relationships too. Talia was beautiful and we had fun, but it only worked because we didn’t expect much from each other. We were together when she was in town, but otherwise, we were both free to do whatever we wanted. “We weren’t exclusive.”
“Oh.” The surprise on Bridget’s face makes me wince inwardly.
“We both traveled a lot.”
“You don’t have to explain,” Bridget says and shakes her head. “I get it. It makes a lot of sense. It must be hard to have relationships with your schedule.” She waves a hand. “Not to mention, you’re always surrounded by beautiful women. I think I saw that girl over there on the cover of a magazine last month.”
“With the right one, I don’t think it’d be that hard. Most of my buddies are settled down now and they make it work.”
She nods thoughtfully. “Do your friends know about me and Gabe?”
“Just that you dated and he’s a giant prick.”
She snorts a surprised laugh. “I worried a little about coming tonight. I don’t want to cause any problems for you.”
“You’re not. And no one here will run to him and say anything. I promise. They have my back and that means they have yours too.”
“That’s going to take some getting used to.”
“People having your back?”
She nods, then blushes like the admission makes her uncomfortable.
I hate that for her, but it makes me that much more determined to be someone she can count on.
* * *
A little before midnight, Bridget and I are sitting outside with some of the other couples. Shit, am I part of a couple? The thought has me grinning.
Scarlett, Jade, and Piper pulled Bridget into conversation with them and I’m pretending to care about the card game the guys and I are playing.
I’ve got one hand resting on Bridget’s thigh under the table and every few minutes she looks over at me and smiles.
