Decidedly With Love

by Stina Lindenblatt

  “Oh, honey,” the woman said, “I doubt he didn’t want to do the project with you because you were in foster care.”

  “And I bet if that were the case now,” Hannah said, eyes glistening, “he wouldn’t still feel that way. Not with everything he’s doing to help you when it comes to the youth center.”

  I smiled softly. “I know.” And I did.

  “Can I ask how you ended up in the system?” the woman asked.

  “My mother got bored of being my mom. She walked away one day and never came back.”

  “And your father?”

  I shrugged. “Never knew him. Other than his accidental sperm donation, he wasn’t in the picture and my mom never talked about him. It was like he never really existed.”

  I glanced behind me, almost expecting to find a comfy leather couch. Attention ladies and gentlemen. We have free psychotherapy in aisle five.

  Did I want to run and hide from the truth? Yes—but somehow telling a complete stranger my dark secrets felt good. I had never shared them with anyone before, not even with Hannah.

  “How many foster homes did you live in?”

  “Seven.”

  “Boyfriends? Other than your current one, how many have you had?”

  I glanced at Hannah and almost laughed at her please-don’t-let-her-ask-me-these-questions expression.

  “A serious one back in college. Since then, I’ve been dating guys but I haven’t met the right one yet.”

  “And how did it end with the boy back in college?”

  That’s right, everyone—Dr. Lovejoy was a fraud.

  Fortunately, the elderly woman had no idea about my alter ego. What did Hannah think about it, given both our love lives sucked? She got a huge kick out of it.

  “I gave him my V-card…I mean my virginity. He couldn’t get away quick enough after that.” Even Olympic sprinters couldn’t move that fast.

  The woman’s eyes were free of sympathy—always a bonus. Instead, understanding lit them from within. Only I had no clue what she understood.

  “You said you’ve dated other men. Is it usually just one date or more than one?”

  “Depends on the guy.”

  “They rarely last more than three dates,” Hannah piped in. Her expression then morphed into an Oops-didn’t-mean-to-do-that look.

  I nodded at the woman’s questioning gaze. Yes, it’s true.

  “Friends? Other than…” She indicated to Hannah.

  “Hannah’s my best friend. We lived in foster care together when we were seventeen. And I have a few other friends.” Like Kate.

  “Are you close or are they friendly acquaintances you hang out with from time to time?”

  “I guess more like the latter. We’re all busy, so we don’t get together as much as we would like.” That was one of the joys of owning your own business. No time.

  “Seems to me that you have a fear of being abandoned again like your father and mother did to you. Like your ex-boyfriend did to you. Which means you tend to avoid long-term relationships. Other than with Hannah, you don’t let yourself get too close to people.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not true. I don’t fear being abandoned, I don’t avoid getting close to people, and I do want a long-term relationship.”

  Hannah’s expression said the opposite. She agreed with the woman.

  And here you’ve been judging Travis and his fear of commitment when you’re no better than he is, a know-it-all voice in my head pointed out.

  Denial twisted inside me. I pushed it aside.

  “Are you telling me I’ll never have a boyfriend again?” Wow, talk about depressing. Maybe it was time to do a little research. I had always longed for a big chubby cat. Could you be a crazy cat lady with only one cat? Or did you need an army of them to qualify for the title?

  “But you already have a boyfriend, dear,” the woman said.

  “Only for four and half more weeks.”

  “Because it’s complicated?”

  I nodded. “Very complicated.” I didn’t want to imagine what she would think if she found out I was just Travis’s fake girlfriend. “So what can I do to fix me? I don’t suppose I’ll get lucky and there’s a pill I can take?” Or maybe my fairy godmother would finally pay me a visit and make everything better.

  No, I didn’t believe that would happen either.

  Or maybe this woman was my fairy godmother. But instead of saying, “Bibbity bobbity boo,” the modern-day version just doled out advice.

  “You might consider therapy.”

  My heart sank in my chest, knowing I would never do that. For one, I didn’t have time.

  And what if someone found out Dr. Lovejoy yearned to fall in love but was afraid of being dumped again? Because with my track record, it was bound to happen. It wasn’t like there was a twelve-step program for people like me.

  “You’ll have to learn to trust that people who care about you won’t hurt you like you’ve been hurt in the past,” the woman said. “And that will take a very special young man to earn that trust—because it won’t be easy.”

  Which meant after Travis was no longer in my life, there would be no more chances to get laid.

  Yeah, yeah—I know. That wasn’t exactly what she meant. But the reality? I didn’t do one-night stands. And given how my body was currently on strike when it came to orgasms and Alejandro, I was seriously screwed—and not in the good way.

  I thanked the woman for her advice. After she left us, Hannah and I found the paint and supplies I needed. Neither of us spoke much—both deep in thought about what the woman had told us.

  At least that’s what I assumed Hannah was dwelling on, due to her sudden subdued self.

  What else was I thinking about?

  Travis. This afternoon. Shirtless.

  18

  Emma

  The following evening, Travis and I were busy preparing the wall at the youth center that we would be painting. Normally the room would’ve been filled with kids, but their activities had been temporarily relocated so Travis and I could work.

  Or at least try to work. All I could think about was the elderly woman’s psychoanalysis of me in the hardware store.

  Okay, truthfully? I was still dwelling on how Travis might be my only opportunity to ever get laid again.

  I mean, sure there was always a chance I would meet a guy and trust he wouldn’t hurt me like so many others had. But there was also a chance a plane would land on me while I crossed the street. And let’s just say the odds were looking more favorable when it came to the plane squishing me.

  “How did you get the scar on your chin?” Travis asked.

  The scar in question? It was a small scar that one of my foster mothers had given me. I was fourteen at the time and she accused me of seducing her husband. No idea why she had believed that. The guy made a sumo wrestler look anorexic.

  “You know the superstition about how stepping on a crack will break your mother’s back? Turns out, tripping on a crack will cause you to cut your chin.”

  Well, more like having someone jab you with a broken beer bottle, but close enough.

  “Do you have any scars?” I asked. At least he couldn’t see the ones on my chest.

  He laughed. “I’m a hockey player. Scars are part of the game. Mine aren’t too bad. Not like some of my teammates.”

  “And at least you still have all your teeth,” I said as I dipped the roller into the paint. I glanced at him, doing my best to ignore how hot he looked in his shorts and the T-shirt stretching nicely across his chest. “You do have all your teeth, right?”

  I hadn’t noticed any missing when I kissed him—not that I’d done a thorough inspection with my tongue the other day.

  “Yep—definitely still have them all.” He was quiet for another few minutes as we continued painting. “Can I ask why you ended up in foster care if your parents didn’t die? But if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine, too.”

  “There’s not much to tell. Nev
er met my father and my mom wasn’t cut out to be a mother. She abandoned me when I was eight.”

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  I laughed, the sound filled more with humor than the bitterness that had once kicked me hard in the ass. “Shit’s about right.”

  Time to lighten things up. “How about we play a game?”

  “What kind of game?”

  “Kind of like Truth or Dare.” Although I had no idea what dares I would make Travis do.

  “All right. You go first.”

  “What’s your favorite ice cream?”

  “Christ, Emma, you really know how to ask the scary questions.” The sexy smirk, which the ache between my legs greatly appreciated, slid back on his face.

  “Just answer the question, sir, or you’ll have to do the dare.”

  “Oooh, now you really have me scared.”

  I lifted my chin. “You should be scared. And you do realize there’s a time limit, right? Sounds to me like you’re stalling. Is this your way of saying you don’t like ice cream? Because if that’s true, I’ll need to rethink this whole fake girlfriend arrangement.”

  “Chocolate.”

  I expected him to ask me a similar question. Did he? No—he went in for the kill. “The first time you had sex?”

  “Are you talking about how old I was?”

  “How about the who and the where?”

  “That’s two questions.”

  “Which I combined into one. You didn’t specify in the rules I couldn’t do that.”

  “That’s because it’s a given you can’t.” Roll. Roll. Roll.

  Travis chuckled. “You might want to put some paint on your roller.”

  Slight technicality.

  I dipped it into the paint, taking the time to ensure it didn’t have too much on it.

  “You’re stalling,” Travis said. “Is this your way of saying you’re still a virgin?” He sounded like he believed that as much as he believed in the Easter Bunny.

  “I’m not stalling.” I straightened and returned to the wall. “It was my college boyfriend and we were in the apartment Hannah and I shared.”

  “Sounds like fun.” Nope—he clearly didn’t believe that either. “Your turn.”

  “What’s the most exciting place you’ve had sex?” Oh crap! Did I really just ask him that? What the hell was I thinking?

  Oh, right—apparently I wasn’t.

  He actually had to contemplate it for a moment. Either he was trying to remember such an event, or there were so many to choose from.

  My bet was on the latter.

  “That would have to be several years ago. A group of us were hiking in the woods near where we were camping. One of the girls we had met the previous night and I slipped away.” The wistful smirk on his face made me wonder if there was more to it than that. Maybe they’d had hot sex while swinging from a tree. Like Tarzan.

  What—Tarzan didn’t have sex with Jane while they swung from tree to tree? Sure, he did.

  “What about you?” Travis asked, breaking me from my thoughts about sex with Tarzan.

  “What about me?”

  “What’s the most exciting place you’ve had sex?”

  Double crap! “You can’t ask the same question I just asked,” said the woman who had been fine if he asked me the question about my favorite ice cream flavor.

  “Says who?”

  “It’s in the rules?”

  His eyes sparked with amusement and challenge. “Prove it to me.”

  “Fine,” I said with a huff. “I’ll answer your question.”

  Now here lay the problem. The only place I’d ever had sex was in bed.

  No, that didn’t sound lame at all.

  I strained to remember an exciting place mentioned in the romances I’d read over the past few years. Some had been erotic romances. Nothing got a girl in the mood for a night with their own Alejandro than a steamy erotic romance. Read one of those sexy scenes before turning on your orgasm buddy, and you were bound to come hard and fast.

  Anyway, I digress. Back to the exciting place dilemma. In one book I’d read, the hero and heroine met up in a bar and he caused her to come while they were sitting at the table. Then they hooked up in a bathroom stall.

  “That tough to come up with an answer, huh?” Travis asked.

  “I’m thinking. Give me a second.”

  He chuckled again. “Except you don’t have the look of someone who’s reminiscing about some hot fuck sessions. You have more of a constipated look.”

  “I don’t look like that.” Do I?

  “Yes, you do. Which means you can’t remember any exciting places where you’ve done it.”

  I moved my shoulders in a whatever shrug. “Hot sex can happen in bed. It doesn’t need to be somewhere exciting for it to be hot.”

  “True. But counter and shower sex are fantastic, too.” He winked at me and my girlie parts gave a dreamy sigh.

  Paint. I need more paint on my roller!

  I fussed around for a minute with the paint pan, making sure the roller was adequately coated. The entire time, my girlie parts worked hard to remind me of yesterday’s conversation in the hardware store. No, not the one about my fear of abandonment. The one about me getting laid. By Travis.

  Naturally, my brain thought it was a bad idea. My body told it not to be so hasty—maybe they could come to some sort of compromise. A compromise that involved my body getting its way.

  Given my newfound revelation that I was commitment phobic, maybe my body had a good point. What was wrong with having some fun? Didn’t I deserve it?

  “Okay, my turn to ask a question,” I said. “Do you have any hobbies?”

  “Don’t really have time for hobbies during hockey season. And even off-season, I don’t really have any hobbies that I regularly do. I don’t even sketch as much as I used to. I’m more of a do-whatever-I-feel-like-doing-at-the-time guy. Mostly training. Hanging out with the guys. Stuff like that.”

  “Fair enough. Your turn.” I continued painting the wall.

  “How long has it been since you last fucked a guy?”

  Seriously? That was the question he was going with?

  And what was it with all the sex-related questions?

  He’s a guy, the logical voice in my head reminded me. What did you expect?

  Good point!

  Since lying wasn’t my thing, I blurted, “Two years ago.” Not once did I stop painting or look at him when I said it.

  I could feel him staring at me as though I had announced I was running away to join a convent. Considering I was practically a born again virgin, it was always a possibility…if you ignored the part that I wasn’t Catholic.

  “You’re shitting me, right?”

  “Why would you think that? Not everyone does one-night stands. Some of us prefer to go out with the guy a few times first.” The indignant tone? Totally justified.

  “So you’re telling me you haven’t dated in two years—or you just haven’t had sex for two years?”

  “More like both.” I shrugged. “I’ve been busy.”

  It wasn’t like single men normally came into the store. Usually if a guy came in, he was with his wife or girlfriend or boyfriend. So that didn’t leave me with many opportunities for meeting guys these days.

  Travis went back to painting. “So how many boyfriends have you had?” His tone was casual, non-judgmental—nothing but pure curiosity.

  And because I was beginning to view Travis as something more than a fake boyfriend—a friend—I went with the truth. “One serious boyfriend in college. Nothing since then.”

  His eyes widened as if I had confessed to loving chocolate covered ants. “Why did you guys break up?”

  “The guy was a prick. He convinced me that he loved me”—Keep rolling on the paint. Don’t look at Travis whatever you do—“and he convinced me to have sex with him. Then right after he came, he was out the door. Never heard from him again after that.”

  I kept on p
ainting, still not looking at Travis. The air was silent other than the wet sound of my roller moving against the wall.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Wish I were,” I said. “But that’s okay. Lesson learned.”

  “So why no more boyfriends after that?”

  “Hey, isn’t it my turn to ask you a question?”

  “Sure, if we were still playing the game. But we’re not.”

  I guess that also meant I couldn’t take a dare instead of answering him. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ve increased my standards and no one has met them yet.”

  If the woman from the paint store was here, she would no doubt claim I’d increased my standards to make it impossible to meet Mr. Right—which might be true given the recent additions to my requirement list: sexy smirk and dirty talk.

  I mean, really, what was I planning to do? Audition guys to see if they could talk dirty?

  I mentally laughed at that—doing my best to ignore how Travis already met those two requirements.

  19

  Travis

  All I could do was stare at Emma for what had to be several seconds. The woman owned a store that sold all things dealing with love and romance, and she’d only had one boyfriend—six fucking years ago.

  She had even admitted to wanting to find love one day. She wasn’t afraid of it. But if that was true, then why was she still single? The Emma I’d gotten to know during the past week was not only gorgeous, she was sweet and smart and funny. Any guy would be lucky to be with her. Hell, if I wasn’t so anti-commitment, she would be exactly the type of woman I’d go for.

  Anger burned in my veins at how her shithead ex-boyfriend had treated her. It had scarred her—that much I could tell. You didn’t need to be a shrink to figure out that between what her parents had done to her and how her ex had treated her, she was equally as messed up as I was.

  Lucky us.

  Ever since I’d kissed Emma the other day at Granny’s, I’d been craving to taste her again. Maybe it was time to renegotiate the terms of our relationship.