Page 71 of Good as Gold
In the next paragraph, a deckhand interrupts them with an emergency. Something about a broken rudder.
“No fuckingway,” I grumble. I’m too hormonal right now for this kind of interruption.
I slap the book down on the bar in disgust and drain my drink.
“Everything okay over here?” the man beside me asks.
I startle when I realize it’s Matteo. He’s sipping a pint of beer and watching me with amused brown eyes.
“Hi,” I squeak. I’m suddenly grateful that I put on a cute top and some mascara before I came down here. “Didn’t realize it was you! I was just…” My eyes flip to the closed book on the bar, and I’m also grateful that discreet covers are a thing now. Because Matteo doesn’t need to know how dirty my taste in reading has gotten since the night we spent together.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he says calmly. “So I came to see why.”
“Oh.”Busted. “I’m sorry. I thought you were probably busy catching up with your family.”
“Too busy for you?” His brown eyes wander my face. “When has that ever happened?”
Seriously? “Oh, I don’t know. The last decade and a half?”
His face falls, and I feel swamped with guilt. He doesn’t deserve any pushback from me. At all. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just…” My eyes flicker onto his sad ones. “I have been avoiding you just a wee little bit.”
The corners of his mouth twitch. “I see. Am I allowed to ask why?”
My cheeks pick that moment to heat. “You’re doing me this, uh, big favor…” It’s not easy to discuss this in a bar, damn it.
“How big?” Matteo asks, his eyebrows knitting together. “Would you say this big?” He holds his hands about eight inches apart.
“Matteo.”
He grins. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist. You were saying?”
Well, great. Now I’m thinking about his dick. Which is not small. I sigh. “I just didn’t know how to navigate it, okay? I didn’t want to hang on you. I didn’t want to be that super-needy friend. Not when you were already, uh, so generous with me.”
“Aw, buddy. You’re not even my neediest friend. Don’t stay away, okay? You’ll make me think I did something wrong.”
“Wrong? Not a chance.” But now I feel like the worst friend in the world. It’s hard to explain how totally stupid I’ve been. “I thought I’d have some, um, exciting news to share with you soon. I was hoping, anyway. But…” I swallow hard and try to figure out how to put this in a crowded bar.
But Matteo already knows. He looks pointedly at my empty cocktail glass. “You’re having some gin, huh?”
“Yeah.” My voice sounds defeated. “All of a sudden, tonight became the perfect moment for it.”
“I see. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
His soft words gostraightto my tear ducts. “It’s okay,” I say, willing myself not to cry.
Like I said, I’m feeling really hormonal. My period showed up today—one whole day late. That’s not even unusual for me. But still, I had one glorious day of imagining I was pregnant.
Okay, fifteen glorious days. I know better than to count unhatched chickens, but I did it anyway.
Even that metaphor hits too close to home today. Shit.
My eyes water.
“Oh,honey,” Matteo says. And then he leans over and folds me into a hard hug. “I’m really sorry.”
I inhale the woodsy scent of him and shamelessly lean into his hard body. But it actually makes the weepy feelings worse.
“Swear to God I tried,” he whispers. “Put my whole back into it.”
