“It’s okay to say you were stalking me, Shae. I won’t hold it againstyou.”
“Yeah, thanks.” God, her smile was infectious. Aidan could still feel his own smile lingering as Shae cleared her throat and sobered her expression. “Okay. I want to know. Why are you single? You had a girlfriend when we were working togetherright?”
“Part of the time. We broke up about a yearago.”
“What happened there? If you don’t mind measking.”
“Classic ‘we just grew apart’ thing,” Aidan replied with a shrug. “How aboutyou?”
“Okay. I’m going to overshare, ’cause why the hell not. Better to get it all out there, right? And then you can run for the hills when you see my baggage usually arrives via cargoplane.”
“Nah, I’m not running anywhere. Unless your ex-husband is obsessed with you and well armed. Then I might power walk in the otherdirection.”
“I wouldn’t blame you if that was the case. No. Um…” Shae paused and started moving her rice around her plate. “It was kid stuff actually—fertility stuff. Are you sure you want to hear all this? It’s not pretty, first datechatter.”
“Not if you don’t want to talk about it. I’m not trying to make youupset.”
She waved him off. “No, I’m fine. Okay, so he has this huge family. He’s one of six, both his parents have a ton of brothers and sisters and all his siblings are working on their, like, third and fourth kids now. We started trying and trying and trying and trying, but of course I wasn’t getting pregnant. I asked him if he wanted to go get checked out together and then we could check out ouroptions.”
“There’s always adoptiontoo.”
“Exactly. I suggested that too, but he wasn’t having it. I went to go get checked out on my own and my doctors told me I was completelyfine.”
“It washim.”
Shae nodded, pursing her lips. “Pretty sure. We got into an argument about it and he said something I don’t want to repeat because thatwillmake me upset. Things kinda fell apart after that and I knew I would be happier on myown.”
“That sucks. I’m sorry that, youknow...”
“Thank you. It was for the best. I’m—things aren’t perfect, but I’m definitely happier now. Also, I quit Allight. That place fuckingsucked.”
Aidan let out a burst of laughter. “It was a pretty shitty place to work. And now you just need to find the rightguy.”
“Uh huh. Scouring the world of dating apps to find Mr.Right.”
“And what does Mr. Right look like to you?” Aidan didn’t know what made him ask, but the second the words left his mouth he realized he really wanted to know if he had achance.
“He’s about six-two, with red hair and glasses, prettybuff.”
“So you’re saying we don’t even have to wait until the seconddate.”
Shae laughed some more and reached for her glass of water. “Okay, I’ll give you the real wish list that’s in myhead.”
“Let’s hearit.”
“I want someone I can have fun with. I want someone who wants to go on adventures with me. Like midnight runs to In-N-Out adventures and spur of the moment road trip adventures toVegas.”
“Seemsreasonable.”
“I want someone I can send nudes to,” she said, scrunching up her nose like she’d confessed her darkest secret. “I’ve never sent a nudebefore.”
“Hmm. Neither have I, now that I think ofit.”
“What about you? What does Mrs. Right look like toyou?”
“She can bake her ass off, for starters,” Aidan said, his chest warming at the sound of Shae’s laugh. He couldn’t get enough ofit.
“Fine baked goods are a must. Whatelse?”