Page 22 of My Hottest Obsession

“Do you want some?” Goldie offers.

“No, miss, but thank you.”

She nods, already digging in, and I nod at Patrick. A second later, the divider rolls up quietly, and then it’s just Goldie and I alone in the backseat.

The rain is falling down all around us, and I smile.

“This isn’t how I pictured our second date,” I tell her, and she laughs.

“Me either,” she admits.

“So, you imagined it then? What did we do in your imagination?” I ask her.

“You’ll never know,” she tells me primly.

She takes a big bite of her pizza, grinning at me, and I laugh. A crack of lightning illuminates the back of the car, and she jumps, turning to look out the window.

“It’s really coming down out there. I wonder if the streets will flood.”

“I doubt it. The tide was low this week.”

“Do you surf?”

“No, but my apartment is right by the water. I tried a few times, but it didn’t go well,” I admit with a laugh.

“Really? You seem like you would be good at it.”

“I wasn’t. Maybe with more practice, but I didn’t love it. The water was so cold, and I was just bobbing around it in. It was relaxing when the water wasn’t so chilly. What about you? Have you ever tried it?”

“No, we lived too far inland to go to the beach all that much, and there was never any money for activities like that,” she says, and I can hear the wistful note in her voice.

“Maybe we can try it sometime,” I offer.

“After the way that you just sold it to me?” She says with a laugh.

“Maybe it will be more fun with you.”

“Maybe,” she says as we inch through the dark, wet streets.

“So, it was just you and your mom growing up?” I ask carefully.

“Most of the time. She dated a lot,” she says, and I can hear the bitterness in her voice.

“How were the guys?”

“Awful. Sleazy. Users.”

She seems over this conversation so I don’t pry any further. I want to, though. I want to ask her if that’s why she has issues trusting me, but I know that she would just close up.

Patrick turns onto her street, and I offer her another slice.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Your parents.”

“Oh, yeah, they were awesome. Married thirty years before my dad passed away. My mom followed him a year later, and I’m convinced that it was from a broken heart.”

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