Sweet Imperfection Read Online Free

she’d seen. She’d always rather fancied his silky black arm hair, and she allowed herself a little peek where his forearms extended from his linen shirt. Yeah, hairy in a good way. A very good way. She was pathetic if the sight of arm hair was making her as hot as a sidewalk in July.
    He’d think she was really hard up if she propositioned him tonight. She had some self-respect. It had been so long since she’d felt the spark of attraction with anyone; she might as well enjoy this butterfly feeling and take some memories of it back home with her.
    Home. Home to Brooklyn, which was, amazingly, Nate’s home, too. Now that they were aware of one another’s proximity, he’d be turning up like a bad penny, and she’d need to maintain their friendship if she wanted to survive that. Park Slope was like a Weston dorm sometimes, so many alums had landed there. Why not Nate, too? But if things got out of hand this weekend, it could become awkward when they got back to the city. She was locked into a thirty-year mortgage that she had no intention of bailing on.
    Far better to keep things friendly with Nate this weekend. If it was meant to be, they’d exchange contact info, have coffee or a drink sometime, and let things progress naturally. Jumping his bones at their college reunion smacked of desperation, nostalgia, bad judgment. And they hadn’t even been drinking, so they wouldn’t be able to blame it on the alcohol.
    There, decision made. No sex this weekend. Her libido would have to calm itself. No more arm-hair peeking. No more fantasies. Just friends. With effort, she dragged her attention back to the movie, only to realize it was ending with the walls of Jericho tumbling down, Claudette and Clark about to consummate their tempestuous romance.
    At least someone would be getting some tonight.
     
    ***
     
    “Are we getting old?” Emma asked as they trudged back across campus to the Ashworth dorms. “It’s barely ten o’clock, and I’m exhausted.”
    “We’re not old; we’re just smarter than we used to be,” Nate offered. He hoped that was true and his instincts were not wrong. Otherwise, he was about to get shot down in a stunningly embarrassing fashion.
    Though outwardly still her pert little self, Emma had seemed stiff during the movie and hadn’t responded to his overtures of conversation. She used to whisper to him constantly during film class. He’d eventually stopped trying to engage her attention, caught up as he was in the tale unfolding on screen, the mismatched couple equal in wits and bravado, their vulnerabilities the thing that would bring them together if only they could get over their pride.
    That had been his and Alison’s problem. They had been too concerned about how they appeared to each other and hadn’t cared enough about what was really going on between them.
    He’d discovered his passion for woodworking as their wedding—a traditional affair Alison had been set on—was being planned. He now saw she’d thought it a passing hobby, and he’d eventually get a real job like her friends’ husbands. A husband who worked with his hands didn’t fit how she wanted her life to be.
    He’d also wanted to start their family while she had wanted to be the cosmopolitan, trendy Brooklynite who had a husband more as a status symbol than a committed partner and who could wait another decade to try for kids. He hadn’t had the guts to admit they wanted different things. When he’d found out she’d gotten pregnant and had an abortion almost a year into their brief marriage, he had been stunned she’d do something so drastic without his knowledge. After that, their fragile relationship had had no chance of recovery. He still felt horribly betrayed that she could do something so selfish when she was well aware he wanted kids. He felt the loss of a baby he hadn’t even known about while it existed more than he felt the loss of his marriage. He was as pro-choice as the next liberal, secular