SEVEN #2
“Imagine you split from Tomb, and many years later, he’d still be the one you thought about, wouldn’t he? Even if you were dating or still alone. You’d think that he was the one that got away, the one you measured any other man against.”
“Yeah. Unless he’d cheated on me, then I would have already buried his cheating ass in the mountains.” Both ladies chuckled, and he heard their glasses clinking.
“Amen to that; I’d help by carrying the shovel.”
“So, this fling... he’s been the blueprint for other men?”
“Unconsciously, yeah. We know how men are.”
“Most of them are savages.”
Splice wouldn’t disagree. Men were fucking idiots.
“But this guy, he was different. Everything a woman would want if she were writing a shopping list of attributes. Nina, he was so attentive, like he anticipated my needs.”
“Sexually?”
“Sex and outside of sex. Everything. It totally blew my mind.”
“Oh, boy. Tell me more, I’m so invested.”
So the fuck was Splice.
He felt a gurgle of jealousy for this guy she hadn’t forgotten. Eavesdropping was thirsty work, and he drained the glass in one gulp.
“If I had a boyfriend now, that’s what I’d want him to be like. Is it too much to ask to be thoroughly spoiled with attention?”
“Hell no. Let’s manifest that shit,” Nina said. “What else, babe?”
“Men don’t know how to appreciate foreplay. They think a two-minute kiss automatically leads to sex. I want a man who will kiss me for as long as I want kissing and not expect it to go to the bedroom. Kissing is its own pleasure, and so are hugs. I miss cuddling the most.”
“So, this fling... he was a good kisser?”
“Oh, yeah.” He heard Lisa’s husky hum. “He would just grab me and kiss me for ages. He had a mouth made for sin.”
Splice’s eyebrows hit his hairline.
Hold his fucking dick. Splice sat up straighter, hardly breathing. That line sounded familiar. It was something Lisa would say to him. How sinful his mouth felt.
Was she saying the same line to different guys?
“What about the sex? Don’t hold back. I feel like you’re edging me,” snickered Nina.
“He was unmatchable before and after. I think that’s why I don’t miss having someone in my bed.
How can I settle for mediocre when I already had the best?
I don’t want to be Cinderella and try on all the shoes just to find the right one, you know?
He would grab my hand as if he had the right to, and my knees would go weak.
I think that summer I filled my quota of a lifetime of sex. ”
“Now I’m even sadder for you,” declared Nina. “What happened if he was the unicorn of men?”
“Some stuff happened, and I ended up leaving town, and I traveled the world for a few years until I came back to the States, and then I met Rowley at an event.”
“But you never forgot him?”
“He’s always been in the back of my mind, I guess.”
“So, the sex was out of this world. What were his maturity levels like?”
“I don’t think it’s politically correct to use these words today. But...”
“Fuck that, it’s only us, say what you want to.”
Lisa chuckled. “He was a real manly man, you know? Like old school, a guy who liked to take care of me. A gentleman type. He was dirty when he wanted to be, but he had manners, too. He wouldn’t let me pay for anything and got offended if I tried.
His gait was powerful, and he constantly had eyes on him wherever he went.
He was cocky, and I liked that because it wasn’t all bluff; he backed it up with actions.
I knew if anything went wrong, I could call him, and he’d be capable enough to sort it out. ”
“Capability is sexy as hell.”
“Mmhm.” Agreed, Lisa, with a hum. “He could fix anything without even struggling. He changed my tires and even sorted out the front yard. It was like a jungle when I moved in. He’d meet me from work just to walk me home, holding my hand. And he would call me when he said he would.”
“Damn, babe. I think you had a book boyfriend.”
A tickle in the back of Splice’s skull intensified because he was ninety percent sure Lisa was describing him. Describing their relationship.
That whole summer, he’d taken care of her garden. When she moved into that apartment, the yard was a shithole.
When she’d broken up with him, he’d gone to her apartment two days later, hoping to fix whatever had gone wrong, but he found out she’d broken her tenancy agreement and moved out.
And then that last ten percent joined the rest of Splice’s certainty when he listened to Lisa saying, “He’s a lot younger than me. Don’t be scandalized too much, Nina, but he was only nineteen.”
Holy fucking fuck. Lisa was talking about him.
His body wanted to jackknife to his feet and make himself known. To force her to look at him and to say all that shit to his goddamn face.
Had she never forgotten him in ten years?
Un-fucking-believable.
There was a sort of mist over Splice’s eyes as his slow brain tried to process everything he’d heard and attribute it to himself. That’s when he tuned his ears back in and heard.
“You sexy cougar! I love that for you, actually. A toyboy under your thumb, and to boss around, having him as your lapdog,” laughed Nina. “Why the hell didn’t you hang onto him? Didn’t you try to get back with him at any point?”
“No. Once I left town, I changed my number because I knew he’d try to find me.”
Splice had never bought the garbage excuse Lisa had given him about being on different roads of life, or that he was too young.
They’d been so compatible in every sense.
“Assessing everything you’ve said, I don’t think we could find you the perfect blind date to check off all those boxes.”
No, the fuck Lisa couldn’t.
Because her perfect man was sitting in the next booth with his heart beating outside his goddamn chest, he’d eavesdropped on more than he’d expected, so now all the blood in his head had shot down to his dick.
“But let’s see if we can write a list of things you want today. Forget the hot fling; he’s probably bald, fat, and jobless now. Good riddance to him,” declared Nina.
If only she knew how wrong she was.
And if Lisa was about to verbally make a list of shit she wanted in a man, there was no way he was moving his ass from that spot.
He slid his phone out from his inside pocket, pulled up the notes app, and looked at the blinker, waiting to copy her list.