And her heart flipped over. Then plummeted.
“Stay? Like here in bed rather than going to the festival? Or for a couple extra days? Or…”
“For good.”
Dammit. She sighed and shifted farther away. For a second his arm tightened around her as if wanting to hold her in place, but then he relaxed and let her slip out from his arm. She pushed herself up to sitting and leaned over to grab her sweatshirt off the floor. The first garment she touched, however, was his t-shirt. She pulled it on anyway. She just needed to be covered.
Then she faced him.
He had shifted so he was propped up against her headboard. The sheet covered him from the waist down, but not his shoulders, chest, or abs.
Dammit. Willpower. You have to have willpower.
“So,” she started, folding her hands in her lap and resting her elbows on her thighs, “that’s crazy.”
He nodded. “I know it seems that way.”
“It doesn’t just seem that way, Mitch,” she said. “It is crazy. People don’t just spend a couple of days together and then move a thousand miles from home to be together.”
“People in my family do stuff like that all the time,” he said, lifting a shoulder.
“Even more reason to stay far away from you and your family,” she muttered.
“Tori’s doing it.”
Paige shook her head. “She knew Josh longer than we’ve known each other.”
“Not that much.”
“Well, I’m not Tori.” She frowned.
He chuckled. Actually chuckled at that.
But it was true. Tori was fine with falling in love and making a long-term commitment. Paige was… not.
“What?” she asked.
“So you like your life the way it is? Your family drives you crazy being in your business all the time. The town drives you crazy being in your business all the time. You’re judged for everything you do from your work to how you spend your free time to what you eat.”
Paige opened her mouth to reply. But then she snapped it shut. Well… fuck. He was right, of course. How did he know all of that? He’d just figured it all out?
“So the last thing I want,” she said, grabbing on to her argument. “Is another person in my business.”
“I don’t want to tell you what to eat or what job you should do.”
“But you want to change how I live.”
“No… I…” He frowned. “That’s not what I’m trying to do.”
“But it’s what would happen. Any relationship changes my life, brings one more person in that needs to be a part of decisions and choices from what I do in the evening after work to how I spend my birthday. I’ve been considerate of the men who want to date me by saying no to anything more than a casual fling or hookup.”
He scowled at that. “It’s been considerate of you to not spend their birthdays with them, to not want to hang out with them and go to the festival or movies together?”
She threw up her hands. “Yes! If I don’t want to spend every moment with them or have their opinions or advice on how I’m living my life, then it’s nice of me to not lead them on thinking that I do want those things.”
“That’s not—”
“And I’d especially feel obligated to share my life with someone who would have moved his entire life a thousand miles just to be with me. I couldn’t just let you sit at home by yourself here without feeling guilty. You wouldn’t know anyone else here or have anything else to do.”
“I’m not asking…” He shoved his hand through his hair.
She lifted a brow. “Then what are you asking?”
“For you to give this a chance. A real chance. To honestly see if this could be something.”
“Right. To date you. Seriously. Exclusively. To go to movies and spend my birthday with you.”
“Yes,” he finally said, exasperated. “Yes. I want to be with you. A lot. I want to see what this could be if I lived here, or close enough, to see you more often. I want to get to know you. So, yes, Paige, I want to move here and see you every single day and be a part of your life.”
Her stomach flipped at his words. But she wasn’t sure if it was dread… or temptation.
“I’ve been proposed to four times.”
He paused, his hand partway through his hair again. It dropped as he stared at her. “What?”
She nodded. “I’ve been proposed to four times. Twice by the same guy, so three guys. But four proposals.”
He looked completely confused. “You’re twenty-two.”
“Yeah. The first time was right after my high school graduation.”
“Um… wow.”
“And I said yes to that one.”
He scowled. “You’ve been engaged? Already?”
“Yep. Guy I’d known my whole life. My mom’s best friend’s son.” She shrugged, her chest aching the way it always did when she thought of Garrett. He had been such a great guy. Still was a great guy. And she’d not only broken his heart and ended their lifelong friendship, but she’d broken his mom’s heart and the heart of everyone in her family.
They would have been a little frustrated or even mad if she hadn’t dated him at all, but nothing like the hurt and disappointment after she’d ended the engagement.
Now she really tried with everything in her not to break hearts. Any hearts.
Her mom didn’t like her yoga studio or cat collection, but Paige was upfront about those being what she wanted, so Dee was just frustrated… and worried… but not heartbroken about those choices.
“Jesus.” Mitch blew out a breath. “What happened?”
She shrugged. “We turned sixteen and our moms had always said they wished we’d date. So we did. And then… it’s how things go here. You date. You get engaged. You get married. You get jobs. You have kids.”
“But…” Mitch frowned. “You didn’t.”
She shook her head. “I was trying on wedding dresses. My mom was all teary-eyed about it. Amanda was so excited. Everyone was so happy. Except the girl in the mirror. I realized I was doing it for them and that I didn’t want to get married. Not at age nineteen for sure. But not to Garrett any time. So I took the dress off, told them it was over, walked out, broke up with him, and… they’ve never fully forgiven me.”
Mitch was just staring at her. “And…” He shook his head. “The other two?”
“Adam was the next one. We had some chemistry—I mean, I didn’t hate kissing him or anything. And neither of us were planning to go off to college so I guess he figured why not.”
“That is…” Mitch shook his head. “Wow.”
“He was the one that proposed twice. After his dad passed away and he took over the farm completely just last spring, he asked me again.”
“Had you been dating then?”
“Nope.”
Mitch shook his head again. “And the other one?”
“Similar thing. Guy I’ve known forever who settled down here and getting married is the next thing on his to-do list. He looked around, saw a girl who seemed to be in a similar place, took me out to dinner a couple times, had some not-terrible sex, and then popped the question.”
“You slept with them?” he asked with a frown.
“Not Adam,” she said. “The one who asked twice. Garrett, the one I said yes to, sure. And the other one...” She shrugged. “Yeah.”
Mitch seemed to be gritting his teeth. “You didn’t explain the hookup-only rule to him?”
“Actually, I did.” She leaned in. “But he didn’t listen. Because that’s not what he wanted to hear.”
Just like he wasn’t listening. She knew that he got the point.
“Everyone here is just marriage crazy?” he asked.
She shrugged. “It’s just… what you do. It’s just the natural progression. Or a bad habit. Or a contagious disease. Or something.”
He snorted.
“You think I’m kidding? My three best friends from high school are already mar
ried.”
“And they’re all your age?”
She nodded. “And they all married their prom dates.”
His eyes widened. “Prom is like a giant mass engagement event here or something?”
“It’s serious. No one here believes in just… fucking around. Having fun. Doing anything… temporary. Everything is long term and about futures.” She sighed. “One of my friends married the only guy she ever kissed. They started ‘dating’ when they were ten. Another married the guy who asked her to prom. I mean, they had a little bit of an excuse. She got pregnant prom night.”
Mitch snorted again. “Prom is trouble around here.”
“Oh, for sure. But they’re still together and have two more kids.” She rolled her eyes. “And another friend, the one I had big hopes for, left her high school boyfriend behind to go off to college, but she only lasted a semester before she was back here, going to school in Dubuque, and planning their wedding.”
“Wow.” Mitch nodded. “Okay, so there’s a lot of pressure.”
“Oh, and that’s not even my family,” she said. “My grandparents eloped when they were seventeen. My parents were childhood sweethearts. My sister married her high school boyfriend and had two kids by the time she was twenty-four and she wants two more.”
“Josie didn’t marry her high school boyfriend,” Mitch pointed out.
“Only because she didn’t have one. Sure, she’s marrying an outsider, but she’s always been a romantic, wanting to settle down and the whole thing. And they’re living in a house that’s been in my family for five generations. She’s working a job in a business that’s been a staple in this town for fifty years. She’s seeing the same people she always sees. She sees my family all the time.”
“She must like it.” Mitch was frowning.
“She does.” Paige didn’t doubt that for a minute, and she didn’t begrudge her sisters their happiness. It was just that their lives made her feel restless and itchy.
“So what do you want?” he asked.
She took a breath. “It’s going to sound selfish.” Her oldest sister had flat-out told her it was selfish as a matter of fact.
“Hit me,” he said, making a come on motion.
“A Year of Aloneness.”
He studied her, then one corner of his mouth curled. “A Year of Aloneness?”
She nodded. “I want to go to Colorado and have a Year of Aloneness. I want to live alone in a new place where it’s not weird to be a yoga-doing, cat collecting, vegetarian. Where no one has known me for even six months not to mention since I was born. And where no one will propose to me.”
Mitch didn’t say anything for a long moment. “For a year, huh?”
“At least.” She could go a hell of a lot longer than a year not being proposed to. Or even just not being considered a weird failure. But a year seemed like a great starting point.
“And when does this year begin?”
“When I have enough money saved up.”
“Why Colorado?”
“Steamboat Springs is a gorgeous place with a happy, healthy population. They have hot springs and tourists. Seems like a good place to have a yoga studio. And while I save up money, I’m getting my massage therapy license too. Yoga and massages seem to go with hot springs and gorgeous walking trails with stunning mountain views, don’t you think?”
“I guess I’ve never given hot springs and yoga a lot of thought,” Mitch said. “But I’ll take your word for it.”
She shrugged. “I actually hope I can just work for someone else. That would be easier. No roots.”
“You’re against roots?”
“I’ve got so many roots right now that I can barely pick my feet up.” She sighed. “I’d like to be rootless for a while.”
“For a year.”
She tipped her head. He was hung up on that it seemed. “At least,” she added.
“Right.” He seemed to be thinking that over.
Paige frowned. “Told you that it sounded selfish.”
“It doesn’t,” he denied. “You have… a lot here.”
“I do.”
He shifted, sitting up a little straighter. “So it’s not marriage you’re against. Just the importance your family has put on it.”
She frowned, wondering why he cared so much how she felt about marriage. She swore to God, if he proposed to her, she’d throw him out in the snow. Without Max’s coat.
Maybe without his pants.
“It’s the idea that I’m weird or failing if I don’t have the marriage and family and mortgage thing.”
“So that’s what you want to get away from. Their expectations and pressures.”
“Yes.”
He sat forward. “Come to Louisiana.”
Her heart flipped in her chest. “What?”
He’d better not be proposing. Though asking her to come to Louisiana was not just a movie date.
“For the wedding. Josh and Tori’s,” he added.
She breathed out. But she couldn’t deny there was a tiny twinge of disappointment. “Oh. Yeah, I could—”
“Then stay.”
She felt her mouth drop open.
“Shake it up. Tell your family you’re going to do your own thing. In Louisiana. They won’t have a front row for your life there. They won’t even know what you’re doing, so they can’t judge it.”
That was crazy.
And it sounded nice.
“Just move to Louisiana?”
“Yep. I can give you a place to live. Free by the way.” He gave her a little wink. “And a job. You can save up money there just as easy as you can here. Maybe easier. No rent. No paying business overhead.”
She also sat forward. “I’m guessing the place to live would be with you?”
“In my house,” he said with a nod. “But it’s got four bedrooms. There’s another guy living there too. Works for our family business. He’s our veterinarian.”
Her own bedroom. But in his house. Uh-huh. “What’s the job?”
“Otter yoga.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Um… what?”
He chuckled. “I mean, you can do more than that. But there are no yoga studios in Autre.”
“Hmm…” She quirked an eyebrow. “Otters?”
He grinned. “We have otters. A whole family of them. We’ve decided to start an otter encounter as a part of the Boys of the Bayou business. People can come and interact with the otters, feed them, play with them. Seems like a girl who is used to doing yoga with cats, could figure something out with otters too.”
That sounded fun, actually. Otters were adorable.
“We have alligators too. Turtles. Lizards.”
“Yoga with alligators?”
“Maybe the babies?”
She laughed.
“And we’re getting a llama. Tori is taking one back with us. Maybe two. Knowing Tori, actually, probably three.”
“From Drew and Dallas Ryan?”
“Yep.”
“They’re alpacas, actually.”
“Right. Alpacas.”
Alpaca yoga. Otter yoga. Seeing Mitch every day. Hmmm…
“My family would assume that we’d run off and, of course, gotten married,” she said.
“And when we don’t, that will really make them wonder,” Mitch said. “They’ll just have to guess about what the hell is going on.” He leaned closer. “Admit it, that could be kind of fun.”
It could be.
A chance to have a relationship without any outside influences? To spend time with a guy and actually see what could happen without anyone else’s hopes getting up? A chance to really date someone without worrying about breaking her mom’s heart if it didn’t work out?
“You promise you’re not going to propose?” she asked.
“I think I can resist.” He gave her a half grin.
That wasn’t an I promise, but she smiled back.
“Living with you and some other guy isn’t really aloneness,” sh
e pointed out.
“No.” He nodded. “There’s not a lot of space or alone time in my life, I’ll admit.”
Yeah, see that was a red flag. She didn’t want to trade one crazy big family for another.
“But you’re still saving up for the Year of Aloneness, right?” he asked.
“Right.” She was probably six months away, honestly. She wanted to have enough to pay rent for at least part of the year in Colorado without worrying about her job situation.
“So come do that in Autre. Away from the proposals that keep happening up here.” He actually frowned slightly at that.
She grinned. Was he jealous? She hated herself for liking that idea.
“You worried they might wear me down and I’ll finally say yes to one just to shut everyone up?”
His frowned deepened. “Let’s just say I don’t hate the idea of you being away from all the marriage-minded guys that seem to populate this little town.”
Paige laughed lightly. “That should be a huge reason not to come to Louisiana, you know.”
He reached out and snagged her wrist, tugging her up the bed.
She went. Willingly.
He rolled her under him and kissed her long and deep. When he lifted his head, he said, “Come to Louisiana and be my friend with benefits for a few months.”
“That’s it? That’s all you want?”
“I want you to have what you want,” he said, his eyes sincere.
A little bit of her resolve melted. She actually felt it turn to liquid and slip away.
“And I do want men to stop proposing to you,” he added. “Louisiana seems like a good place for you to land temporarily.”
She smiled and ran a hand up the side of his face. “You’re very tempting.”
He pressed his cock against her hip and she felt her body heat instantly. “I promise the benefits will be nice.”
“Your other roommate is a heavy sleeper?” she teased.
“He can get his ass out if he doesn’t like it,” Mitch said gruffly, dragging his jaw along hers.
She shivered and arched closer.
A place to land temporarily. A little adventure. A chance to save up the money she needed but be out from under the magnifying glass of Appleby. Well, her family in particular. The whole town seemed to think that marriage and family were the ultimate goals, but her family was particularly obsessed.
Oh, Fudge: Hot Cakes Book Five Page 11