Gen walked over, offered her hand, and a smile. “Welcome to the family, Wolfe. I’m Gen.”
He paused. For one long, endless second, she wondered if he’d diss her. Instead, his hand clasped hers, warm and strong and safe. “Nice to meet you.”
All Gen knew about him was that he’d once been homeless, then lived in Milan with Sawyer and Julietta, and now stayed in New York with Max and Carina. He was also attending NYU for business. Since they were both attending the same college, he’d been seated next to her at dinner.
They fell into an easy camaraderie. Somehow, she understood he held secrets so deep and dark they may never come to light. She didn’t care. She sensed on a gut-level instinct he had more honor than most men his age.
After dinner, they’d found themselves alone, talking outside. She’d asked a bunch of questions, wanting to get to know him, but he only gave one-word answers. Tension tightened his frame, and she realized he grew more and more distant. Fragments of the conversation drifted past her memory.
“DON’T YOU LIKE TO talk about yourself?” she asked curiously. This man, who her twin sister pronounced extremely fuckable, seemed so much more than his shaved head, tats, and leather wristbands. Secrets danced in his eyes. She also sensed they were painful. Another reason he didn’t like to talk?
“No,” he answered. “I don’t talk about the past. Just today.”
His answer fascinated her. A deep connection flowed between them, as if they’d met in another life and time and were just now picking up where they left off. “So I won’t ask you any other questions. We’ll just be friends.”
The need and suspicion mingled in those gorgeous blue eyes. “Friends? I bet one day you’ll ask me stuff. Get mad at me for not sharing. Girls do that.”
She smiled. She wasn’t like most girls. “Pinky promise, then. We won’t discuss either of our pasts unless you want to. No questions.” She liked the idea of having a clean slate with this man. Someone who didn’t judge her on previous actions or performance, but accepted her for the woman she was at the moment.
He crinkled his brow. “Pinky promise?”
She sighed with impatience. “You know a better way? A swear is a swear.”
He reached his hand out tentatively. Their pinkies twisted and locked. Pure energy rushed between them, but it was like a nice, heady buzz that made her feel good in her tummy. “Pinky swear,” he said gruffly.
“Pinky swear,” she repeated.
And then the best part of all happened. For the first time since they’d met, he smiled at her. Her heart lifted and filled up, and Gen knew she’d be happy around that smile all the time. Finally, she had a guy to tell her secrets to and with whom she could be safe, laugh, and just enjoy the moment.
YEARS LATER, IZZY STILL drove her crazy questioning why she wouldn’t fuck him. Even Kate, Kennedy, and Arilyn—her closest girlfriends—wondered aloud why they’d never hooked up. Gen noticed the general attraction, but she was able to glimpse the big picture. Wolfe couldn’t hold on to a relationship. He loved sex and teased her with details of his greatest escapades while she groaned and covered her face, screaming “TMI!” But it was just about the physical. When it came to emotional commitment, he checked out, and Gen realized what they had was so much deeper and more meaningful than a quickie affair.
She studied him in his navy blue board shorts and wondered why their relationship was so easy, even from the start. Maybe because she let him be who he wanted and lifted the threat of painstaking questions. They were able to accept each other on their own terms. Maybe because she allowed him to show her who he was now without expectations of who he had been. And she bet it had been very, very bad.
He poised on the end of the deck in full masculine glory and cocked a brow. Her tummy tumbled, then steadied. She was used to it and never analyzed the sensation. He was an attractive male and she’d have to be dead not to have a physical reaction. The occasional attraction was easily dealt with when she thought of losing their friendship. “Coming in?”
“No.”
“Thought you grew up in the country. Come on, Gen. I hate when you act like a girl.”
She stuck out her tongue and snagged another beer. Then she plopped her butt onto a fat rock and stretched her legs out. “I am a girl, you idiot. There are bugs and fish and things in there. No way.”
“You disappoint me.”
He got ready to dive and her inner devil ignited to life after months of being on vacation. “Better watch the spider crawling up your leg.”
“What!” He hopped from foot to foot in a clumsy dance, reaching down and swiping his legs in a parody of comedy. Then he toppled into the water.