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My brows rose. “Yeah?”
She nodded.
I tugged her closer and squeezed her ass. “I’m honored to have one of your firsts. That means I’m also your best. At least I won something tonight.”
She laughed lightly. “You were already my best.”
Closing my eyes, I let my forehead fall against hers. That admission was big, and I didn’t even have to think about whether I agreed.
“Mine too, Clara. By a landslide.”
We sat in a cheap plastic booth in the back of the bowling alley, both of us sipping on a milkshake.
“Tell me how it’s possible you haven’t been taken on a date.”
Her lips were wrapped around her straw. They broke off, and she licked the drop of chocolate off her bottom lip.
“Pretty simple. I met my ex-husband in college. He was my first serious boyfriend. We hung out at parties and in each other’s dorms. Once we were out of school, we’d go out with family or friends, but that was rare since we were both so busy at our jobs.” She shook her head. “Time slips by quicker than it seems. One day, we’re starry-eyed college kids, and the next, we’re in our thirties, entrenched in work, and checking off the have a baby by thirty-five box.”
I tried not to show how miserable that sounded to me, but Clara took one look at me and winced.
“It didn’t feel as lonely as it sounds until I was out of it,” she said softly.
“I get that. Like boiling a frog. The water temperature is raised by small increments, so the frog doesn’t notice until it’s too late. Now that you’re out of the pot, you can see the bubble and steam.”
“Hindsight is a bitch.” She took another sip of her milkshake. “What about you, Jake Hayes? You give a good date, so you must be experienced in all this.”
That eased a chuckle out of me. “I like that you think this is a good date.”
“It is,” she insisted. “Games and a milkshake, does it get much better?”
“Now I feel like you’ve laid down a challenge.”
She leaned forward. “And I feel like you’re not answering my question. This leads me to believe you’ve done more than your fair share of dating. Tell me.”
With a sigh, I slid down in my seat, one arm resting over the back. I didn’t have much interest in rehashing my dating history, but it was only fair since I’d been the one to broach the topic. And, as I’d learned over the years, my natural closemouthed state wasn’t conducive to building any kind of relationship. I wasn’t certain things were going to go there with Clara yet, but I knew damn well they wouldn’t have a chance if I fell back on old habits.
“If I choose to be with a woman, I like to make her feel special.” I drummed my fingers on the table. “When Sage was younger, I got it into my head I should settle down to make a conventional family life for her like she had at her mom’s.”
“Carly told me she has two siblings.”
“Yeah. Dex and Cleo. Cute kids. Sage pretends they annoy her, but she loves having siblings.”
“Carly seems nice,” Clara hedged, her teeth digging into her bottom lip. I heard the question behind her statement—one she clearly didn’t want to ask but needed an answer to.
“She is.” I took a drink of my milkshake. “We grew up in the same town. Tried things out in high school but decided we were better as friends. A week later, she got a positive pregnancy test and made up her mind to keep it. At the time, I’d thought my life was over, but we had a lot of family support and worked it out. Managed to stay friends and co-parent pretty damn well.”
Something in Clara eased as I explained my history with Carly. It hadn’t been some love affair, just two dumb kids irresponsible with contraception. I liked that Clara cared, that she had been a little jealous, and that she was letting it go now that she understood.
“And Carly got married, so you decided you should try to do the same,” she filled in.
“Yeah.” I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling sheepish. So succinctly, she’d summed up my previous way of thinking. “I dated around. Found a woman I liked well enough to be my girlfriend. We were together for two years, but it didn’t work out, and I haven’t had much interest in going down that road again since.”
“Was it messy?” she asked. “The break, I mean.”
“Clean as could be.” I swiped my hands together. “One day, she was there. The next, she was a ghost in the wind.”
Her brow furrowed. “After two years together, she disappeared? How did Sage take it?”
