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“Well, that too, but there’s nothing I wouldn’t give the man, and he knows how to use his dick.”
Skylar swore at my candid answer.
“Too much?” I asked again.
“Absolutely not, but I’m a little turned on right now. That’s not weird to say is it, since we’re being so honest?”
That truth rushed more need through my body, settling into my groin. I’d never had such an open conversation about sex before, not even with the women Rhett and I had hooked up with over the years.
Any acts of sex had transpired as though contracted. Thoroughly read and neatly signed with precise strokes of a pen—or rather, dicks.
Skylar was eye-opening. Refreshing.
A potent distraction from the day’s grief.
“Not at all,” I assured her. “So, are we still on for dinner?” I asked, ready to see if Skylar was as beautiful on the outside as she seemed on the inside.
She gave me her address, two hours north of where Rhett and I lived, and when we finally hung up with the promise to see each other the following evening, I couldn’t contain the hope soaring me through the clouds she’d claimed to live in more often than not.
But I liked her that way.
Being among the billowing white fluff balls, as she’d called them, allowed her inner rays of sunshine to beam down on those in need of smiles and laughter.
I just knew the woman Missing Link had matched us with would be the perfect angel both Rhett and I needed in our lives.
9
Rhett
She is perfect.
I sat on the hard plastic chair in my mom’s room and stared at Ash’s text, my insides going tighter than they had while trying to talk to my father about pulling the plug on the machine keeping his wife’s lungs inflating. Stoically reserved as always, he refused to budge past a stern “No.”
He hadn’t listened or responded to a goddamn word I’d spoken after that.
My stomach rotted from acid and too much coffee.
Add in that it seemed like my lover had found the woman of his dreams, and I struggled to keep feelings from rising to choke me out.
If my father knew half of the shit tearing me in opposing directions, he would ridicule me like always, even though I’d done nothing but try to be supportive for whatever he might be going through.
I refused to be overrun by internal reactions, and needing to expend some energy, I left the hospital for the evening, thinking an hour or so of working out in the hotel’s gym would help quiet my mind and calm my stomach.
Since I hadn’t responded to Ash’s text and I couldn’t put off a conversation any longer, I called him on speaker while driving the rental car toward my hotel.
“Hey,” Ash answered, his voice full of concern. “Everything okay? You didn’t text back, and I was starting to worry.”
“I’m fine,” I answered on autopilot while assuring myself the same damn thing.
“Your mom?”
“Nothing has changed, and my father is refusing to let her go.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to fly over there—”
“No.” I cut off what he’d asked me every conversation we’d had since I left. Of course I wanted him there—longed for him—but I would protect him from his childhood PTSD no matter the cost to me personally.
“I appreciate your willingness to be here for me, but I’ll be fine,” I repeated. “Tell me about your redheaded ray of sunshine.” I veered the topic off sickness and death, thankful as fuck I managed to keep my request nonchalant.