CHAPTER NINE
Jagger
This explained a lot.
Raina’s husband was obviously the love of her life, and his death ruined her.
She tried dating apps, which is where we initially met, but then she must have realized she wasn’t ready to date when she saw me.
While she certainly could have been more polite about it all, and not ghosted me—or turned into an icicle toward me—I understood where she was coming from.
There was no timeline for grief. My brothers all found new relationships when they were ready.
And Raina would too.
Maybe.
She spent a considerable amount of time in the sitting room, stirring the chili and making small talk with the rowdy grandparents, but eventually, either the room got too warm for her liking—it was too warm for me—or she felt the alluring pull of the puzzle again, and she rejoined me.
Bringing with her two steaming mugs from the kettle Lenora must have put on the woodstove.
“Thank you,” I said. Even though I was too warm for tea, I appreciated the gesture.
“I didn’t mean to upset you.” She sat down and tucked her seat in, gently knocking my knee below the table.
That caused her to instantly scoot it back out a bit.
“We don’t have to talk about it anymore if you don’t want to.
I appreciate you answering my initial questions though. Thank you.”
With her head down, eyes laser focused forward, like she was trying to see one of those 3D hidden pictures, she merely shrugged. But it was what she didn’t do that really struck me as peculiar.
Whenever my brothers spoke of their late wives, their postures changed.
Their shoulders rounded a little, their lips pressed tight, and they swallowed more like they were trying to keep down the rising tide of emotion.
Their eyes would go a little glassy, even their voices would get softer.
You could feel the love they had for their wives in every breath, in every syllable of their words.
I wasn’t getting any of that from Raina.
And yes, everyone grieved in their own way, but there was something else. Something … odd.
“My husband was quite a bit older than me,” she said quietly with a deep exhale, cradling her mug in both hands and blowing the steam off as it rose toward her nose. “I was his third wife.”
“Oh.” I didn’t see that bit coming.
“Josiah wasn’t exactly a nice person. He was verbally and emotionally abusive. He yelled a lot. Threw things. He was sexually selfish, and a massive misogynist. He believed women were good for three things: cooking, cleaning, and having babies.”
My mouth dropped open, but before she looked up, I snapped it shut. “Fuck,” I breathed. “I’m really sorry.”
She lifted a shoulder. “He’s dead. I don’t have to deal with him anymore.”
Fuck, the way she said that had me wondering for half a second if she offed the guy herself just to be rid of him. But as much as Raina Aaronson was a redheaded pistol of a woman with brass ovaries, she didn’t give me murderer vibes.
Glancing sideways, she made sure the seniors weren’t listening before she started speaking again.
“It’s kind of ridiculous … stupid really, that my preferred porn, ” she whispered the last word which made me smile, “is what it is, considering Josiah never did that. Considering … I’ve never done that.
Or … had a man do that for me … to me … whatever. ”
Now I was unable to stop my mouth from dropping open like a goldfish with a broken jaw, nor could I snap it back closed.
“I ghosted you because when I saw you, I got scared. That I wouldn’t be enough.
That I would be too na?ve. Too inexperienced.
Too … sheltered. Our chats were great, but seeing you in person …
with your beard, your glasses, your blue eyes, and way too many muscles bulging out of your T-shirt, I realized, I needed to start with a tricycle, before I tried riding a unicycle. ”
At that very moment, I’d decided to take a sip of my tea.
Big fucking mistake. I sprayed it all over the table and puzzle pieces.
“Shit,” I exclaimed, standing up at the same time as Raina, both of us running to the kitchen, but getting stuck on the threshold of the doorway between the dining room and kitchen because it wasn’t meant for two people to go through at the same time.
Her growl made me stand back so she could enter first. She snatched the tea towel from the oven handle and rushed back out to where I was already blotting the mess with a stack of napkins I found on the console table.
She wouldn’t look at me as we cleaned up my mess.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, unable to keep the smile from my mouth or voice.
“It’s fine,” she dismissed with a huff. “Not sure where that diarrhea of the mouth came from.” Her head shook, and she rubbed furiously at the table, even though the spot she focused on was now dry. “Just ignore me. Forget what I said.”
“It’s, uh … it’s hard to forget a confession like that. And me without my priest’s costume.”
Her snort was cute and seemed to ease some of the tightly growing tension around us.
Reaching forward, I rested my hand on hers, making her stop her scrubbing. “Raina, look at me.”
She hesitated at first, so I growled just a little and her gaze snapped to mine.
“Good girl.”
Fire ignited in the green of her eyes, and she swallowed.
“There is no need to be embarrassed about anything you just told me. I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about.
And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry your marriage was so terrible.
That your sex life was so … unfulfilling.
” I shrugged. “I mean, I watch alien porn, and it’s not like I’ve ever had sex with aliens.
” I narrowed my gaze for a moment. “That I can remember anyway. I did wake up one morning after a very strange dream and my butthole did feel looser.”
She fought the smile for as long as she could, the quiver around her eyes betraying her. But my charm eventually won out and she smirked. Then came the eye roll and the headshake.
Okay, good. We were back on track.
I removed my hand from hers and we finished cleaning up my mess.
“To be fair though, you did liken having sex with me to riding a unicycle. So me spitting out my tea is not the most ridiculous reaction.” I stuffed the napkins into the garbage under the sink as she tossed the soaked tea towel into the hamper in the laundry room.
“Not sex with you. Dating, in general. God, ego much?”
We exchanged smirks as we sat back down to the table again, our knees bumping underneath for a second time. But what was interesting was, this time, neither of us pulled away. We kept our knees there. Touching.
Lenora flitted into the dining room. “Chili smells good, dears. Probably ready in another thirty?”
“I’d say so,” Raina said. “Did you want me to help you make some fried flatbread? Or did the rolls survive the back of the freezer?”
“Oh, those are already out with the chickens. They were so freezer burned. Only person I’d serve those to would be Walt—the cheating bastard.”
Raina’s gaze met mine, and she stood up again, smiling. “I guess I’m on bread duty.”
“Need a hand?” I asked.
“No. I’m good, thanks. You just keep working on the jaguar there.” Then that perplexing little woman winked at me. She fucking winked.
And my dick fucking jumped.
Goddammit, maybe I needed to start drinking just for this day to make sense, because at the moment, stone-cold sober, it was confusing as hell.
It was two-thirty in the afternoon, and all the grandparents in the room were sloshed and getting sleepy-eyed.
The chili was a great idea, and the fried flatbread was delicious.
We ate in the living room where it was warmest, each of us cradling a bowl of the vegetable and bean concoction, dipping our bread in it, and for the most part, just silently enjoying a warm meal. I’d eat my salad later.
I glanced over at Raina as she sat squeezed into the middle of a loveseat between Bernie and Effie, carefully holding her bowl and spoon. She looked about as comfortable as a rat in a cat café.
“This is very good,” Effie said, her eyes halfway glazed over, and her wine glass empty. “Just what we need to soak up the booze.”
“Good booze,” another guest by the name of Julian, piped up. “Very good.”
“And free,” Julian’s wife, Cynthia, added. “Free booze is always good.”
“Not so,” I argued. “I’ve had terrible free beer that wouldn’t be worth drinking, even if I was dying of thirst. I’d rather drink warm monkey piss than some of the swill breweries are trying to pass for beer.”
Several of the guests chuckled.
“The states get a bad rap internationally for having weak beer—except for our microbrews. And honestly, I’m inclined to agree with the rest of the world. Coors Light is only good for putting out a car fire.”
More chuckles.
I glanced at Raina. “Wouldn’t you agree the same goes for wine?”
She was mid-chew, so all she could do was nod.
“Expensive wine is not always good, and cheap wine is not always bad. And people are such visual buyers that they’re drawn to the cheeky name or fancy label, then act surprised when the wine isn’t any good.
It’s all just smoke and mirrors.” Swirling the last bit of my flatbread around in the dregs of my sauce, I took a bite, shoved it into my cheek, and kept speaking.
“That being said, good beer and good wine will also have cheeky names and labels in order to stick with what’s trending.
So it can end up making it very difficult for buyers to know if what they’re getting is any good. ”