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Ro was studying the other woman like she was a particularly deranged mental patient. I was getting a real kick out of it.

“Don’t bring him back,” I said pleasantly. “You can deliver some to him in his room when you’re done, or hell take both of yours to go.”

“No, no, I’ll take mine with you two and bring him his later,” Ida said cheerfully, “Bananas Foster is always better fresh. He’s the one that threw a fit. No reason I should be punished for it.”

When she finally left to deliver my father’s dessert to him Ro said, “It’s amazing how many character flaws that level of beauty lets you get away with.” She sounded as riled as I’d ever heard her.

I smiled at her, a very personal, we’re the only two people in the world smile, and said, “So true. Now let’s go to bed together, cupcake.”

“Do not say it like that.”

Ro sleeping in my room had been all my idea, but that didn’t make it any easier for me specifically to get through.

It was a long night, but in spite of that, a very pleasant one, one I would repeat as much and as often as I could.

She came to my room soon after dinner. She’d already readied herself for sleep, was in her PJs (a loose T-shirt and boxers), and she climbed right into my bed, no hesitation.

Where was her sense of self-preservation?

“I can’t wait for you to meet my parents,” she told me as she pulled the covers, my covers, up to her neck.

I wouldn’t be washing my bedding again for quite some time.

“Why?” I asked, instantly distracted by her getting into my bed and saying something so interesting at the same time. She knew how to catch my attention. “Are they crazy too?”

“They’re the two cutest people on the planet.” Deadpan. “Where do you think I got it?”

I was standing over her in my bed before I even realized what I was doing. She was flat on her back, our eyes locked when I said, “I can’t wait. You should invite them to visit soon.”

“This place might shock them. You’d have to keep all the crazy sex on counters down to a minimum and hide your fornication room from them.”

I was offended and a little angry she even thought she had to say that. “First of all, don’t call it that. It’s a sex room. Fornication sounds like something you should say as you’re thumping a bible on my forehead. Second, I’ve been on my best behavior for quite a while—because of you. You think I wouldn’t do the same for your parents?”

“Okay, I’ll tell them they’re welcome any time, then. Goodnight, Thorn.”

“Goodnight, cupcake.” I didn’t leave, still staring down at her. “And call me Turner. You know Thorn is my surname, right?”

“It just suits you, and friends call each other by last names all the time.”

“Maybe bros that work together.”

“We’re basically bros that work together.”

“No, we’re not,” I said very, very softly.

There was a brief stare down.

“Tell me you don’t want me,” I said quietly.

“How is that going to help?” she asked me.

“You don’t get it.”

“Don’t get what?”

“I need you to say it,” my voice was low and thick, my blood pounding. “Because I want you.”

“You want everyone, so what does that even matter?”