Josie let out the breath she’d been holding. When she stepped toward me, she could have been just as likely about to slap me as she was kiss me. Instead, she grabbed my hand and smiled. “You do realize that ‘taking it slow’ means not jumping into bed on a first date, right? Not even the second, third, or fourth.”
I matched her smile and played along. “I don’t know what your definition of ‘taking it slow’ is, but mine is taking our sweet time in bed . . . after dinner on our first date. And the second, and the third, and the fourth.” She squeezed my hand until I winced. “All right, all right. We’ll do this according to your definition of ‘take it slow.’”
Her face went serious again. “I didn’t think you were capable of taking it slow.”
“Neither did I.”
“And you are now?”
I nodded. “I am now.”
“Why?”
That was the big question. “Because you deserve better than my best. You deserve the man I can and should be. Not the one everyone else knows.”
“And while we’re taking it slow . . . Where are you going? I’m not some girl you just met—I know you. Loyalty and sticking around isn’t what you do when it comes to women.”
Josie wasn’t saying anything I’d never heard before, but because it was her, the words cut through my tough skin. “I’m not going anywhere.” I lifted my hand to the bend of her waist. I curled my fingers into her and held on, hoping she’d never want me to let her go.
Her eyes closed, and her forehead lined. “Whose or how many beds will you make stopovers in while we’re going slow and figuring this out?”
I winced. All the collective pleasure and satisfaction I’d gained from being with dozens of women was not worth the flash of pain I witnessed on Josie’s face right then.
“No one’s. None,” I answered, lifting our entwined hands back to her cheek. I waited until she opened her eyes. “There’s nowhere else I want to be. I’m not going anywhere. I’m exactly where I want to be.”
When her fingers gave mine another squeeze, a gentle one, I had my answer. Biting her lower lip, she nodded once. “Slow and steady. Let’s see if we can be great together.” Then she smiled. Well it was more of a smile-smirk. “Because we’ve already been not-so-great together, right?”
I chuckled softly. “Whatever. You and I must have different definitions of ‘great,’ too.” I was pretty sure I was going to kiss her. I was also pretty sure it wasn’t going to be a short kiss. Then a familiar, and quickly becoming an annoying, clacking grew louder. It was like the woman had built-in radar to know whenever I was about to kiss her daughter.
Mrs. Gibson showed up in the kitchen a moment after Josie and I separated and stood at a distance far enough from one another not to rouse suspicion. A lot about Josie and I would be confusing, but one thing I was not in the slightest confused about? Keeping her parents in the dark for as long as possible. I didn’t want to dodge shotgun spray every time I tried to take her to the movies or wrap my arm around her.
“I didn’t realize you were making a pie. I thought that’s what you spent all afternoon doing.” The closer Mrs. Gibson got to the pie, the more her eyes widened. “What in the world happened to that pie? And the ice cream? I don’t think there’s much ice left . . . just cream.” She looked inside the carton. It had turned into a sloppy mess while Josie and I worked out what we just had.
Had she really just agreed to give me a chance? The moment was finally catching up to me, and it was causing me to feel a little lightheaded.
“Other than ruining pie and ice cream, what have you two been up to in here?”
I guessed teasing Mrs. Gibson about getting after making her grandchild dreams come true probably would have been humor wasted right then. Josie wiped the pie filling off the edge of the knife with her finger and slid her finger into her mouth. Hot damn. That was not helping the dizzy sensation.
“We were just catching up. Sorry.” Josie shrugged.
“You two have known each other since kindergarten. How much ‘catching up’ do you need?”
“A lot.”
“Are you caught up now? Or should I leave and check back later?” Mrs. Gibson could hang with the most sarcastic of us. If I wasn’t sure she’d grow horns and breathe fire if she found out how I felt about her daughter, we probably would have gotten along okay.
“What do you think, Garth? We all caught up now?” Josie’s face had a hint of a smile.
“I think we covered the important parts. The rest we can fill in as we go. We’ve got time. We can just take it slow. Nice . . . and . . . slow.” I wagged my eyebrows at her. Josie responded with her standard reply when I was a pain in the ass—an eye roll.
“Good for you both. Glad you could catch up. We weren’t really looking forward to cherry pie anyways.” Mrs. Gibson cringed when she inspected the massacred pie again. “Please tell me you didn’t do the same thing to the Masons’ pie.”
“Nope. It’s still on top of the fridge. Safe and sound.”
Not when I got a hold of it.
“Good. Why don’t you grab it, carefully, and head over to the Masons’ with Colt? I’ll take care of the mess.” Mrs. Gibson wasn’t looking at the ice cream. Nope, she was looking straight at me.
Josie looked from her mom, to me, to the pie, and repeated. “Okay.” Wiping her hands on a towel, she grabbed the pie off the fridge.
While Mrs. Gibson beamed and hurried into the dining room with a, “I’ll let Colt know,” a serious frown and a case of what-the-hell hit me. “Did I hear wrong, or did you just say you were going over to Colt’s?” I followed Josie around the kitchen as she grabbed a few things.
“No, your ears are working just fine,” she replied calmly.
“Okay, then did I just miss something earlier? Something about us talking about giving us a chance?”
Josie smiled at me, but I couldn’t return it. I was not in a smiling mood. “No, you didn’t miss anything. We talked about giving us a chance, and I don’t know if anything’s changed for you in five minutes, but I’m still planning on giving us a run.”
“Then why are you going to Colt’s?”
The skin between her eyebrows creased. “Did you miss us talking about taking this whole thing slow? Nice . . . and . . . slow?”
I settled my hands on my hips. When she looked about thirty seconds from heading out the front door with Colt Mason wasn’t the time to be making jokes. “No, I didn’t miss that. What does us taking it slow have to do with you leaving with Colt?”
“Plenty.”
I wrapped my hand around her arm as she covered the pie in plastic wrap. “Explain.” As far as relationships went, I had no experience. I’d never had a real girlfriend, but I’d had plenty of girls who were “friends.” Josie was the expert in the relationship department.
Josie glanced at my hand on her arm. “Trust.”
“The one-word answers are giving me nothing. Trust? What does trust have to do with Colt?”
“Nothing, but right now, trust has everything to do with you.” She stuck her finger into my chest.
Shit, of course when the one-word bomb from Josie was Trust, it would have been dropped with me in mind. “Explain.” My new favorite word.
“I’m giving you a chance to prove you have or are willing to learn what it takes to be in a relationship. Paramount in any relationship is trust.” She grabbed the pie and turned for the dining room. “This is your opportunity to show you have trust in me.”