Page 54 of Sexting the Cowboy

She groans and covers her face. “You’re never going to let me live that down.”

“Not for at least a week.”

She peeks between her fingers. “Okay, fine. I will admit to having made out with a very delightful source of B-roll.”

I laugh. “Then stop deflecting and name names.”

“Absolutely not,” she says, then grins.

I set my cup down, the heat lingering in my palms. “Well, if we’re playing confession chicken, I have one caveat. Whatever I say next, it’s not Reno. It will never be Reno ever again.”

Mac leans back and throws her head with a hand to her forehead like she’s in an old movie. “Thank God.” She pretends to fan herself with a glove. “I feel twenty pounds lighter.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“And relieved. That man started off great but flamed out hard, and you deserve better,” she says, dropping the theatrics and tipping her head. “Okay. Proceed.”

“Proceed to what, exactly?”

“To the information. You’re glowing. You hate mornings. You smiled at me before the coffee even touched your tongue, and that never happens unless you saw a puppy. So unless there’s a golden retriever under this cot, it’s a man.”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions.”

“I’m making correct assumptions. Who?”

I stare at a nick in the table, the little bite out of the laminate that I keep meaning to sand. “It’s someone I shouldn’t be involved with.”

“Aren’t they all?”

“I’m serious, Mac.”

She doesn’t gasp or scold. She just shifts in her chair like she’s moving closer to a good fire. “Ah.”

“Don’t get excited.”

“I’m not excited,” she lies. “I am concerned and also mildly thrilled, which are not mutually exclusive states. You never do anything unexpected or anything you shouldn’t be doing.” Her eyes fall to slits like she’s studying an interesting rock. “Shouldn’t beas in it would get you fired, orshouldn’t beas in it complicates all the wrong things, orshouldn’t beas in your heart knows better?”

“Yes. To all three, possibly.”

“Okay.” She taps her cup with a fingernail, thinking. “If it’s someone you shouldn’t be with, maybe you should listen to that instinct.”

“Maybe.” I don’t like saying it out loud.

She nudges my ankle with her sneaker. “Or maybe the instinct is just fear in a nice dress. You’re allowed to want things.”

“We don’t always get to keep what we want.”

“I know,” she says softly. “But we get to decide how honest we are about it.”

I sit with that for a second, then flip the spotlight back like we’re fourteen in a sleepover. “Is your hookup someone you shouldn’t be with?”

Mac squirms, then catches herself. “Only in the sense that they are a little young for me.”

“How much younger?” My chest does a small, stupid flutter, because the years between me and Brick are not insignificant.

“Six years,” she says, fast, like ripping a Band-Aid. “Please don’t judge me for robbing the cradle.”

I snort. “That’s nothing at our age. As long as everyone is an adult, age doesn’t matter.”