Page 117 of A Matter of Time

“Let’s go now.” He yawned loudly.

“Wait.” I had thought of something else. “Are you going back to Texas?”

“I have no plans to do so.”

“Do they want you to go back?”

“Of course.”

“Do you want to?”

“No.”

“But you should.”

“Why should I?”

“Are we okay?” I asked suddenly, checking to make sure.

“Clearly.”

“And so what about your new family?” I sighed, so relieved that we were over our old relationship and beginning a new one at the same time. “You have siblings.”

“It was for Susan.” He got up and crossed the room to his desk to retrieve his suit jacket from his chair. “After this one time, there is nothing more I can offer. It’s futile to even pursue.”

“But—”

“Jory, think now—different lives will dissolve into, what, cards at Christmas? I have that now if I do nothing more. How many people do you want to have to shop for?” He smiled at me, one dark eyebrow arched in a question.

“But they’re your family.”

“I had a family before my parents died. I don’t need more.”

“Will you regret it later?”

“I very much doubt it.”

“Maybe we’ll go back.”

“No.”

“No?”

“You are part of my life, same as my other friends that I don’t share with just anyone.”

Oooh, I was grouped with the important people! “So that’s why I didn’t go?”

“That’s why.”

I nodded. “That was a nice thing to say.”

“I have my moments.”

Dane and I had such a good lunch that afterward he dumped me at home and told me he would see me the following morning. When he shoved me out of the cab, I stood on the sidewalk waving like an idiot for several seconds. Still buoyant four hours later, I accepted my friend Andy’s invitation to hit the club with him and a whole big group of people. And I almost wished I would run into Sam Kage, the way I looked, because this way he could see what dressing to get laid really looked like.

The black jeans hugged my legs and ass like a second skin, sitting low on my hips, and the silk shirt was open to my abs. I decided on my way out the door that anybody who wanted to put their hands on me was free to do so. When one of Andy’s friends groped me in the car, I let him. He smiled and pressed himself into me.

“Andy, Jory’s open for business.”