“Sound weird?” she asked, her tone deceptively light.
“It does. I haven’t had a girlfriend in a long ass time. Didn’t think I would again, obviously.”
“Yeah, you were definitely the forever type—with her at least, weren’t you?”
“I could be again, who knows,” he said, but he seemed distracted. “Can I ask you a serious question?”
She nodded her head. “Of course.”
“Do you think you’ll ever be able to trust me?”
Willow frowned and looked at him over her shoulder. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“You know why. You can’t go into this thinking I’ve never been… unfaithful.”
“You plan on cheating on me?” she asked with a quirked brow.
“Of course not,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“There you go,” she replied. “That’s a stupid thing for a smart man to say, Ethan.”
“I think that might be your age showing.”
Scowling back at him, she said, “Bullshit. You know how I feel about cheating.”
“I do, exactly—you’ve backed your shit up. You may tease, but you wouldn’t even cross the line with me when you were with some frat boy you barely cared about. I’m pretty confident you wouldn’t cheat on me now.”
“Of course I wouldn’t,” she said, the fuzzy, warm feeling taking over again. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of crazy about you.”
“It’s easy to stay faithful when you’re happy,” he stated. “It won’t always feel like this. It won’t always be this consuming, natural thing between us, not if we’re together for any length of time. We’ll get used to each other, there will be lulls, times we feel bored.”
She wasn’t even sure she could imagine feeling bored with Ethan, but given he was far more experienced, she didn’t argue the possibility.
“Okay, so what if we do? You never cheated on Amanda before, right?”
“Of course not, I told you that.”
“Never cheated on anyone else?” she asked.
“Nope.”
Willow nodded once. “I’m not worried then.” Missing a beat, she added, “Plus I’m basically a trophy girlfriend; if you do anything to mess this up, you’re crazy.”
Ethan chuckled against her hair and nuzzled his face against her neck, dropping kisses that sent tingles everywhere. “Good point.”
Telling herself she was worrying too much and creating problems where there weren’t any, Willow forced the worries from her mind and turned in his arms, returning his kiss.
Willow ripped open her third garlic knot, a little more violently than breaking bread really warranted.
Her father was late. Like always. He was the one who called and demanded her presence—to her mom; he hadn’t even bothered talking to her directly—and there she sat, the bread basket nearly empty, her father curiously absent.
“Ten more minutes,” she muttered to herself, dropping the buttery roll on the small plate the waitress had placed on the table for shared food.
On the ninth minute, her father walked through the front door of the little Italian restaurant he’d asked her to meet at. Only 43 minutes late.
Already irritable, Willow kept her gaze low instead of meeting his as she further dismembered her bread.
“Finally made time to see your ol