Page 48 of Badd Baby

He shrugged, but spent a few moments thinking before answering. "To be honest, you."

"Me?" My heart twisted and clenched at his answer. "Meaning?"

Another shrug. "I dunno, Rune. It all just sorta…snowballed. You needed a date to the wedding, and I had nothing going on this weekend. I'd probably have ended up pulling an extra shift or two."

"I really don't mean this as a dig, so please don't take it as one, but you don't have much of a social life, do you?" I asked.

He laughed ruefully, shaking his head. "Nah, not really. All my friends from school and football moved. I go out once in a while. I date."

I snickered. "Date means hookup, though, right?"

He arched an eyebrow at me. "Sometimes. Is that a problem?"

I held up my hands in a gesture of surrender. "No! Not at all."

"Rune." His tone said he didn't believe me.

I sighed. "Fine. I’m judging a little bit, but only because my experience with men is that they're all players. I guess…I…" I paused and thought. "Maybe I'm unfairly judging you based on my own experiences, but I've learned that players are gonna play. A guy who's smooth and charming and experienced…like you…doesn't usually have much of a relationship with truth, honesty, and fidelity. That's my experience. I'm not saying you're like that, Duncan, I swear. Although that was my initial impression of you."

He didn't answer for a minute. "I'm not smooth."

“Yeah, you are. You've got lines, Duncan."

"They're not lines, Rune. I'm just saying what I think." He rubbed the back of his neck, and my stupid eyes couldn't help watching the way his big, thick bicep shifted and rippled as he moved his arm; yum yum. "I understand the impression you may have gotten, though. It's true I don't typically do relationships, but honestly, it's only because I haven’t met anyone I’ve been interested in enough to give a real relationship a try. I’m not a player. I'm really not."

"Have you ever had a serious girlfriend?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Nah. I dated a girl for six months my senior year, but that's it. We graduated, and she moved to Chicago for school."

"Since then?"

"Since then there's never been anyone I was serious about. There was this girl who worked at the Kitty over the summer last year, before I was the GM. Shannon. I really liked her. But it was a summer job, and she made it clear she wasn’t staying past the season." He glanced at me, his expression curious. "You think less of me because I've never been in love?"

I thought about this. "No, I don't. I just personally have always liked being in a relationship. I've hooked up randomly here and there between relationships, but…" I trailed off.

"But what?" Duncan pressed.

"But in my experience, hookup sex isn't as good as relationship sex."

He frowned thoughtfully. “Really? Why, do you think?"

"Hmmm. That's hard to answer."

"But you've clearly thought about it some. Or talked to one of your girlfriends about it," he said.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Both. I talk to my friend Lindsey about pretty much everything. I guess…" I thought some more. "I guess it's about emotions, for me. I'm not a prude—clearly. But I just…in a relationship, there's an emotional connection. I can enjoy sex without that, but it's better with it. It's deeper, and that's not an innuendo or anything. When you're with someone for a longer period of time, in my experience, at least, your sexual relationship changes as your emotional one does, naturally enough. It grows. You learn things about each other. There's a certain…comfort, I suppose, in sharing that with the same person for a long time."

Duncan was silent for a long time, processing this. "Honestly, Rune, no bullshit—with you and me…is it hookup sex?"

My heart did a somersault. I swallowed hard. "I don't know, Duncan. That's the honest answer. We haven’t had actual sex yet, for one thing. But…" I sighed. "If I wasn't going back to LA, yes, I think you and I could have something. Which I think is what you're getting at."

He sighed at this. "I appreciate the honesty. I guess a lot of me wishes you didn’t have to go back to LA. At least, not so soon."

I swallowed hard. "Duncan, god. Don’t go there. Please? Can we just…can we not?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I got you." He stood up. “I’m gonna go check on…um. Things."

I watched him go, trying to ignore the way certain non-physical parts of me ached at the obvious conflict in Duncan. At the fact that part of me wished the same thing.