Something About You (Just Me & You) Read Online Free Page B

changes everything. All the intolerable things about her that used to be
protected by the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ courtship policy? The differences you
can’t reconcile? They’ll come straight to the surface, right away.”
    He just smiled as she reached for the port bottle.
    “It’s true,” she added for emphasis and then hiccupped again.
    “It’s bullshit,” Gage said bluntly. He took the heavy bottle
from her and poured more port into her glass. “Most people claiming
‘irreconcilable differences’ jumped into a bullpen in the first place; they
just don’t want to admit it. Look at Molly and Sebastian. It only took them a
few weeks to figure it out.”
    “They’re outliers. They’re simpatico .” Sabrina didn’t
need to elaborate. Molly had multiple sclerosis, and Sebastian had lost a leg
as a teen. “For the rest of us, marriage is an uncalculated risk, sort of like
bungee jumping.”
    She’d leave it at that. Gage didn’t need to know that as
soon as she said yes to Jackson’s proposal, she had felt a sense of doom. Then
she’d have to go on to explain the factors that had driven her to do it in the
first place. Like the social anomie she felt when she saw her name listed as
the only “Ms.” among rows of “Mrs.” in her alumni roster. And the prospect of
entering her retirement years alone having cultivated bizarre hobbies like
breeding Labradoodles and scouring vintage stores for memento mori. The fear of
growing old alone stole into her soul during nights when she couldn’t fall
asleep because she’d drunk too much coffee. No, those confessions would
eventually lead to the pertinent details of that whole “irreconcilable” bit. You’re
a thirty-six-year-old woman with daddy issues , Jackson had wearily but
succinctly summarized right before they departed the Polar Star and went their
separate ways.
    “I’ve noticed something about you.” Gage studied her with
genuine interest. “You have a circuitous response for everything. You’re in
law, sales or politics.”
    “I’m Representative Theodore Ward’s Chief of Staff.” Even
after ten years in the game, Sabrina still felt a little proud of the title.
    “Figures.” Gage had made himself right at home on a small
hillock of rolling lawn, leaning against it with the back of his head resting
in his hands as though it were his own personal lounge chair. He slid Sabrina a
placid smile. “You know what I think? I think that if you were really itching
to marry this guy, you wouldn’t have sat on your ass for five years. That might
be the way you do it in Debutante and Dance Card Land, but where I’m from, us
menfolk pick the hottest girl we can find, get her knocked up in the backseat
of a car, get hitched, and live something-ever-after.”
    “That is so … lovely . Really.” Sabrina tossed
him a disparaging look. “And where might this place be, so I can make sure to
cross it off my list of potential sabbaticals?”
    “Walden, Iowa. It’s a little ’burb outside of Des Moines.
Sneeze and you miss it.”
    The Midwest. That explained why she couldn’t place his
accent. She tried to conjure up various associations to that particular
geographical area. Cornfields, potatoes and cheese came to mind. Or was that
Idaho? Wisconsin? Aside from the Iowa Caucus, she associated the state with
nothing except news anchors.
    Gage sat up and reached for his glass. She watched the
muscles in his strong throat move as he drained the rest of his port.
    “There’s a simple way to know if you want to spend the rest
of your life with someone,” he told her. There it was again — that sly,
sidelong glance. 
    “Is this my cue to say ‘Oh, please, Gage. Tell me how’?”
    “Only if you’re curious.”
    Sabrina rolled her eyes at the sky. “Okay. Tell me how.”
    “I can’t.” He stared down at his knuckles, feigning
chasteness. “I’d have to demonstrate.”
    “Knock yourself out. Demonstrate away.” Now the port