She laughed and rolled her eyes and went pink in the cheeks. “This is a big deal for me, John. To stand here in laundry-day clothes and wet hair and no makeup and no sleep. The world isn’t kind to pretty much any women when it comes to how they look. But especially not ‘women of a certain age.’ Ain’t that right, Ruth?” Mary scratched at Ruth’s head where she twined between her feet, but when she straightened again, her face was deadly serious. “My mother constantly reminds me how old I am. How time is running out for me. Dying alone is right around the corner. It’s been getting harder to ignore her. And I hate to think it’s because she’s right.” Mary shuddered. “I’m not naive. The world isn’t as accepting of you if you’re over thirty-five and single. Hell, even Sebastian and Tyler, two of the most open-minded guys I know, partnered up with people a decade younger, or more, than them.”

She took a deep breath and nudged at his shin again with her toes. “So, yeah. This is it. This is what I look like with no makeup on. After too little sleep. Thirty-seven and a beer too many. Whatcha see is whatcha get.”

Her bare legs were close enough for him to knock his knee against hers. If he reached up, he could loop a finger through one of her belt loops. Instead, John tried to calm his tumbling mind and piece together everything she’d just said to him. Her age, her mother, his apparent lack of attraction this morning.

“You’re telling me all this because...” He was pretty sure he already knew the answer, but he really, really didn’t want to misunderstand.

She took another deep breath and the sight of her nervous had him reaching up to take her hand, gently leading her to sit next to him on his tiny couch.

“Because when you asked me if things felt different in the morning light, I wasn’t lying,” she said. “But I didn’t mean what you thought I meant.” She looked away and reached down to skim her hand over Ruth’s arching back. “I meant that, like I said, you were about to see me in the bright morning light, and I thought you already had such an issue with my age that you wouldn’t be able to ignore it all spotlighted like that. I get that I misunderstood that now. But think of it from my point of view. Last night I felt sexy and loose. This morning I felt hungover and ugly.” She turned her head to face away. “I didn’t want you to see me that way.”