He’d been taking a drink, but at her words, he nearly choked on it. Wiping his chin, he turned an incredulous look on her. “You’re kidding.”
Chuckling, she shook her head but didn’t look up from the bottle that suddenly seemed to have her full attention. “Nope.”
“That’s…unusual. These days, anyway. Are you oldest, youngest, or in the middle?”
“Toward the back. Eight in front of me, two behind me. My mother pretty much had a baby a year while she could.”
“Wow. Must’ve been crazy growing up in all that. I have one brother, and I don’t think a day went by when we weren’t torturing each other.”
“Let’s just say I was on my own from the day I turned eighteen. Not because they put me out, but because I wanted out. My family is religious. Like…really religious.”
Jared didn’t know what to say, but he knew he’d better tread carefully. Looking at her, one wouldn’t take her as the religious sort, but to point that out might be offensive to her. Religion and politics were the two subjects he absolutely refused to debate with anyone. He and his ex-wife had decided to raise their daughters in church and that was pretty much the extent of his involvement with any of it.
“And you?” he prompted, waiting for her to tell him her thoughts on the matter before he made any assumptions.
“Sick of the whole thing by the time I was ten. Then my brothers and sisters started marrying and breeding, and I realized that was expected of them. And of me. I could express my feelings on that in two words, but you guys just came from church, so I’ll let you use your imagination.”
“Fuck that?” he supplied. She turned big eyes on him and burst out laughing.
“Yes. Exactly. Thank you.”
“Starla, I take the girls to church because it’s something their mother and I want them exposed to—but then I want them exposed to a lot. I want them to make up their own minds. It’s my hope that they’ll grow up to live a full life, and to me that involves finding their own way, making mistakes, and learning from them. Trying different things, discovering what works. As for myself, I can take it or leave it. So don’t worry about offending me at all.”
“Whew,” she said, blowing out the word as if a weight had come off her shoulders. “I’m glad to hear you say that. People who don’t cuss make me fucking uncomfortable.”
He grinned, holding out his bottle for her to clink hers against it. “You can be yourself. It’s all good here.”
“Because I wasn’t sure if we could be friends,” she went on teasingly, holding his gaze now with more directness than he’d seen from her all night. Something about those eyes, somehow simultaneously sweet and naughty, did things to him. Dirty things. He began to wonder if he wasn’t…waking up. After a long, dark, cold hibernation.
“Can we?” Shit, don’t jump the gun here, guy.
“I’m good if you are.”
“That’s settled, then. We’re friends.”
“Great,” she said cheerfully. “So, as your friend who can’t offend you, can I ask you something?”
“You can ask,” he drawled. “Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”
“How about this, then? I throw out one word, and you elaborate upon it in whatever way you see fit.”
“Sounds like I might need another beer for this,” he said with a groan.
“Maybe.”
He already knew what word—what name that would be. Dammit. “Only if I get to do the same thing to you.”
“Deal.”
“Do you want another?”
Starla glanced down at her almost empty bottle before setting it aside on the patio table. “Um, sure. Yeah, I’d better.”
Heading back inside to the fridge, he tried to formulate a preemptive response. Macy. Jesus. He could babble about her all night. What she’d meant to him, what it had done to him to lose her. It was pretty deep material for new friends to peruse, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to tell Starla all of it. Play it cool, blow it off? She would see right through him if he tried those tactics, but it would have to do for now.
He wrenched open their bottles and returned to the deck, handing one to her before reclaiming his chair. “All right. Shoot.”
“Shelly.”
Immediate shame fell hard and heavy on his chest. Of course, of course Starla was curious about his ex-wife, and not so much his ex—girlfriend—while said ex-wife had never even crossed his thoughts. The woman he’d said vows to, the woman he’d promised to love and cherish and protect until his dying breath. And she wasn’t even a blip on his radar now except where Ashley and Mia were concerned.
“Okay,” he said, finding his voice strangled and taking a drink to soothe the guilt. “Shelly.” The beer bottle was cold in his hands. And he felt like a cold bastard when he said, “I never should have married her.”