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“Yes.”
“You—” I cut myself off, thinking of V. He always told me that most people were shocked when he told them his favorite genre purely because he wasn’t a woman. I didn’t want to fall into that. “Wow, okay. Didn’t expect that.”
“Most people don’t.”
“I mean, it’s cool. You read whatever makes you happy. But out of curiosity, what makes you like it?”
“The happy ending. It’s a reminder that no matter what happens, we all get there in the end.”
I blinked as I remembered something similar V once said.
After losing someone in my family, I needed an escape where I knew things would be okay.
“It’s my reason too,” I said softly. “Real life sucks in that we don’t always know how it’ll end. What’s your current read?”
“I have a few.”
“Maybe we could start a book club.”
He laughed. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“No, seriously. I know another guy who likes books too. You two could meet up and talk about your experiences being guys who read romance.”
“You talk to another guy, huh?”
I realized how it sounded, and that feeling of guilt hit me again. I knew I wasn’t going to talk to V any differently while I was married to Levi, but the regret I felt fornotdoing it was hard to stomach.
And it made me feel worse.
“Not likethat.Just about books.”
“I figured it was something like that. I’m not worried.”
“Good,” I said, pushing past the heavy feeling in my chest. “He’s just a friend anyway.”
A friend I had a deep connection with. A friend I wished I’d asked more questions of.
I didn’t even know if he would want to hear them. After all, he’d talked to me for nine years and never brought anything up. Maybe things would never change.
Clearing my throat, I stepped away from Levi, putting some healthy distance between the two of us. I remembered that I needed to put sheets on the guest bed.
“All right, if you’re staying, we have work to do,” I said. “But the first thing on the list is getting me out of this dress.”
“And you want me to do that?”
My words caught up to me. “N-no!I’ll getmyselfout of the dress and then we’ll get the guest room together. Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“Stop saying things to put it there.”
“Keep going, and you don’t get a blanket. You’ll be sleeping in the cold tonight.”
Chapter Twelve
The next morning,I stumbled into the kitchen to start the coffee pot. Everything felt blurry. I wasn’t sure what was a dream and what had actually happened the night before.
Either my mom had turned into the Wicked Witch of the West and flown off into the sunset or Levi had moved in.
This early in the morning, both seemed equally possible.