“What does that mean?”
“She didn’t want to argue with me here. I was all set to defend us, but she’s busy and said she’ll fight with me later.”
“Oh, no.”
Paige looked terrified. Josh wanted to find some way to make this better, but he had no idea how right now. “I’m sorry if I’ve made this bad. I didn’t say anything. Lauren figured it out. But I guess now that the cat is out of the bag, we don’t have to sneak around.”
“This is so bad,” Paige said, pressing a hand to his forehead.
“I’m sorry. I should probably go.”
“I’m tempted to sneak out of here with you, so I don’t have to talk to Lauren. I can’t deal with this right now.”
“You’re welcome to do that, too. But, like, I don’t think this is that big a deal. She’ll come around when this news sinks in for her.”
Paige shook her head. “You sure about that?”
“I’ve known Lauren for all of my twenty-eight years. I think I know her pretty well. Besides, it’s not like we need her permission.”
Paige frowned deeply, which made Josh remember that Paige was worried this relationship could harm her friendship with Lauren and her employment status at the café.
“Sorry,” he said softly. “I just really like you. We’ll have a rational conversation with Lauren once things settle. Deal?”
“Yeah, I…I guess.”
“Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 16
It turned out that it was easy to avoid a pending fight with one’s sister if one had a demanding job.
He hadn’t wanted to hear anything about it, if he was honest. First of all, Lauren didn’t know the whole truth yet, and he was loath to tell her that, not only was he interested in Paige, but they’d been secretly dating for almost a month. Still, he couldn’t believe Lauren would be so selfish as to try to keep him and Paige apart. And so what if she didn’t approve? She was nothisboss.
Although she was Paige’s, and that had the potential to be awkward.
So maybe Josh was being selfish now.
He and Paige spent Sunday night together at Josh’s place, and Josh’s alarm woke him up Monday morning just as the sun was rising. Paige grunted, rolled over, and fell back to sleep.
She’d been in a full-on panic as they’d walked to his place from the café. One would have thought she’d been caught stealing money from the cash register. Josh had tried to talk her down, explaining that they hadn’t done anything wrong, and besides, Lauren only thought she knew something. Josh hadn’t actually confessed that he and Paige had been dating, although he supposed the fact that they’d left together probably convinced her they were.
They liked each other. What Lauren thought was immaterial.
He understood that was not true. He knew this made Paige worry about her job and her friendship with Lauren. He still thought her freak-out was disproportional to the situation, but he hadn’t said anything, just listened to her talk through her panic.
Still, they’d gotten to his place last night and Josh had done everything he could to distract Paige. They’d talked some, and Paige had said she wanted to be with Josh and would have no hesitation about it if not for Lauren. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, but Josh had pounced on that idea and went about romancing her. He got dinner delivered from the same restaurant where they’d had their brunch date a week ago, and they fed each other delicious food and talked about nothing stressful and watched a stupid movie on TV. George had been charming and cute, rolling around on the sofa and trying to convince Paige to pet him, which she did. Then Josh had seduced Paige and distracted her with sex. He hoped she wasn’t panicking anymore.
Somewhere in there, he’d had an unwelcome thought about what this could all mean. The last time he’d put this much energy into convincing someone to be with him had been with Megan, and look how that had turned out. It was the first time since he’d started pursuing Paige that he’d been struck by real doubt. He thought Paige was amazing, but he’d thought Megan was amazing, too, and she’d still bailed on him nearly the instant they were faced with a challenge to their relationship. He and Paige were having fun together, but her freak-out had shown him that she was likely to do the same.
Megan and Paige were very different women, but it was hard not to remember that sinking feeling from watching Megan wheel her last suitcase out their apartment door. It had been like something in his body had soured, had spoiled to the point that it was no longer good or useful, and his life had changed irrevocably because his vision of the future would never come to pass. It had physically hurt him, Megan’s leaving. He’d never wanted to feel that again.
He didn’t want the ghost of girlfriends past to haunt his future relationships, and he’d worked hard to put all that behind him, but Paige was making him feel an inkling of that again.
On the other hand, he and Paige were just having fun, right? They weren’t planning a future. A tiny voice in the back of his mind objected to this, but he pushed it aside.
He got out of bed and hopped in the shower, seething about Lauren. He couldn’t see any viable reason for Lauren to disapprove.
He didn’t have enough food in his apartment to make Paige a fancy breakfast, but they ate cereal together before leaving the building. Paige had the day off, and Josh started to offer to let her stay, but she insisted she needed to get home. She didn’t seem panicked, but Josh couldn’t help but worry that her wanting to go home was maybe her way of saying she wouldn’t be coming back. He did not want to let that happen.
