Page 18 of Making It Up

“So, not a bad boy.”

She laughs. “No. Though I assume bad boys can be bad at math, and guys who end up working at banks when they’re thirty could have drunk and smoked and stolen combines in high school and then changed their ways.”

Right. “Yeah. I suppose.” I hesitate. My next question is absolutely none of my business. But damn, I really want to ask it. And self-restraint is not one of my strengths. Still. “So things didn’t work out with Ryan, I take it. Was he your only one?”

Yes, I just asked Mia Hansen if she’s only slept with one guy. Am I stereotyping the librarian as a near-virgin? Yep.

Am I surprised when she laughs and says, “Well, no”?

Not really. Because I’m already learning that Mia is not exactly who I think she is.

And I like that.

“Ryan and I didn’t even date. I was tutoring him and one night it was late, we were alone at his house, one thing led to another, and I decided it was time to lose my virginity. But that’s all it was.”

I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman this pragmatic about everything.

“But I did like it,” she goes on.

And I choke on air. There’s nothing else to choke on. I’m not eating or drinking, but I’m suddenly coughing for no reason.

“So, I dated Cody Jenson that summer. And we had sex a few times.”

I’ve stopped coughing, but I’m still not breathing normally.

But that’s not my biggest problem.

Nope. My biggest problem is that I like Mia Hansen. A lot.

And I’m now wondering about how she likes her sex. Is she a hard and fast girl? A slow and sweet girl? Lots of foreplay? Dirty talk?

“Then I went to college. Cody and I broke up, of course.”

Of course? I don’t know why that’s of course, but the way she says it, I’m not going to ask because apparently it should be obvious.

“I dated a couple of guys in college but didn’t really like them enough to have sex with them, so it’s been a while. I did date a police officer I met at a fundraiser in Omaha my dad took us all to for a few months. And of course, I fell for him.”

I really want to know what ‘a while’ means, but I’m distracted by the ‘of course’ and the eye roll I swear I can hear in her tone.

“So I slept with him. But that didn’t last. It was long distance and he didn’t want to move here and I didn’t want to move there, so it fizzled. And…that’s it. It’s been a while.”

Yeah, she said that before. I need a definition here.

There’s a long beat of silence and I realize that I now know Mia’s entire dating and sexual history.

Wow.

“What do you mean ‘of course’ you fell for him?”

“I have a thing for guys in uniform,” she says simply. “Because of my dad and the way he saved me and became my foster dad and then adopted me. It’s natural and not a huge problem since I’m aware of it, but it is kind of cliché.”

Again, I’m just blinking.

“It’s why I want to know what your issues are with him,” she goes on. “I have my dad up on a pretty high pedestal and since you and I are becoming friends and I really like you, I thought I should know what happened between you.”

I open my mouth to…I suppose tell her that we can’t become friends and that she shouldn’t like me…but she keeps going.

“But it sounds like you know all the stuff you did was problematic and you don’t strike me as the type of guy to blame him for that,” she says. “You enforce the laws and rules now, so you have to respect that he had to do that, right?”