He clamped a hand on her butt and nudged her closer until her head rested in the indent between the ball of his shoulder and his chest.
They’d never lain down together anywhere, so the fact they just fit this way gave her a funny tickle in her chest.
“This was a great idea,” he said and kissed the top of her head. “I like havin’ you next to me.”
“I like being here with you. Like this.”
“It’d be better if we were naked.”
“Then we’d get bug bites in weird places.”
“Sounds like a fair trade-off to me.”
Tobin’s left hand was behind his head, and he trailed the fingers on his right hand up and down her back, from her shoulder to the spot where her thigh curved into her butt cheek.
“Not much in the way of moonglow,” she said after a bit.
“That makes it harder to stargaze.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “What did you want to talk about?”
Her pulse spiked. She tried to swallow discreetly but of course he noticed.
His hand stilled. “Why are you nervous?”
“Because I don’t know how to do this.”
“What?”
“Pry into your life. Ask about the job you lost out on yesterday. Ask if you blame me, because if it hadn’t been for you moving in with GG, you’d be gone.”
“The job wasn’t a done deal, Jade. It was an in-person interview.”
“But anyone who meets you in person, Tobin, will scramble to hire you.”
He grunted. “They didn’t give me a chance. Granted, I asked for an additional week before I went down there for the interview. That might’ve tripped their warning bells. And yeah, I was extremely pissed off and surly about it yesterday.”
“Did you blame me?” Jade drew small circles on his chest. “Or at the very least GG because she begged you to stay with her?”
“My first reaction was to get pissed off about it, so there was some blame.”
“So there’s no chance for that job now?”
“Nope.”
“Are there others across the country that you need to get to?”
“I’ve got other irons in the fire. It’s a whole lot of wait and see. Why?”
His eyes were assessing her as she started to respond. “If you have other job opportunities, take them.”
“You tryin’ to get rid of me?”
“I’m trying to tell you I’d understand if you left, Tobin.”
Tobin disentangled himself from her and sat up. “That’s just really fucking awesome, Jade.”
She rolled to her knees, annoyed that he had his back to her. “I’m trying to do the right thing here, Tobin, after you were essentially wronged by my family. Why are you mad? Because I cost you the job opportunity you really wanted?”
“No, you basically telling me to get the hell out of Miz G’s house is pissing me off.”
“I didn’t say that!”
“Then what are you saying?”
“That I don’t want to be responsible for any more of your unhappiness.”
Tobin shifted his body so he could look at her. “Whatever gave you the idea that I’m unhappy?”
“You got drunk last night because you were unhappy about losing the job.”
“Wrong. You want to know why I got drunk last night? Because I was actually really fucking relieved they called off the interview.”
“What?”
“I should’ve been mad at Miz G, mad at Renner, mad at you. All I’ve wanted for the last two months was to get the hell out of Muddy Gap. I felt like I’d lost time and opportunity and even a little of myself by not putting myself and my untapped skills out there in the real world. Then you showed up.”
Her chest tightened.
“It pissed me off. I had plans, dammit. I knew in my gut if I nutted up and left here that I’d find what I was really looking for.”
“Which is what?”
“I thought it was a different career. Or a new perspective.” Tobin reached over and twisted a section of her hair around his fingers. “It turns out that it wasn’t something I was searching for. It was someone.”
“Tobin.”
“It’s you.”
“Me . . . specifically?”
He frowned. “Are you tryin’ to tick me off by sayin’ that?”
“No. I just . . . This is so far out of the realm of my experience, Tobin. I’ve never been the type of woman who hears these things from a guy. It gives me a little tickle in my belly, but the kind I can’t be sure is excitement or—”
“Disbelief,” he finished.
“Exactly. And please don’t pretend if the situations were reversed you wouldn’t have the same concerns.” She paused. “Or maybe women tell you all the time that you were what they were searching for.”