Aldo prayed for patience. “What I meant to say is that we’re in this together. My resources are your resources. My problems are your problems and vice versa.” Come on, woman. See the logic. Accept the help.

“Aren’t we a little early in this relationship to be talking about ‘sharing resources?’”

“Gloria, we got matching fucking tattoos tonight. We are not in a typical relationship. There’s no use pretending that we are. We’re dating. You don’t want to be driving around town in a vandalized car. Let me fix this.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not taking your money,” she hissed.

“Fine. I’ll hire you.”

“If you say you want me to water your plants I am going to scream bloody murder, Aldo Moretta.”

“Paint my house.”

“What?”

“The walls I mean. Everything is beige and off-white. I want some color in my life.”

She stared at him, considering.

“Paint my house and the entire town won’t be talking about what Glenn’s mother did to your car.”

It was the right button to push.

“Fine,” she said, grudgingly. “But let’s not make this money thing a habit. You don’t have that many walls.”

50

He fixed her car. Took her for tacos. Met her for lunch. Aldo did his best to dazzle Gloria in every way that a man can dazzle a woman. Except one.

In the course of their increasingly NC-17 goodnight kisses, Aldo realized a new, awful fear. One that he wasn’t sure he could share with her the way they’d shared the rest of their baggage.

Things between them were good. Great even. He loved their text messages throughout the day, their evening chats, the hours they set aside for each other.

Gloria’s mouth beneath his was a slice of heaven that he couldn’t get enough of. It was hard keeping these goodnight kisses limited to just kisses. His body revved with long-forgotten need every time she opened for him, every time she made one of those little wild whimpers in the back of her throat.

She was the sexiest woman he’d ever known, he’d ever kissed.

And he couldn’t pull the trigger.

Even now, Gloria was out of her seatbelt and almost in his lap behind the wheel. That lithe tongue of hers was driving him in-fucking-sane. He wanted nothing more than to drag her all the way over the console into his lap and fog up the windows high school senior year style.

But he couldn’t just throw the truck in gear and drag her caveman-style to his house. They both needed time.

He broke the kiss on a groan. It was getting harder and harder to say goodnight to Gloria. They’d been out three more times this week since the tattoos. And he was scared shitless.