The Rebound Girl (Getting Physical) by Tamara Morgan Page B

delicious I might be. She wants to take up with the wine. Wine is who she’ll marry and have babies with.”
    “I thought you hated babies. And marriage.”
    “I do.” Lincoln dropped the napkin, letting it blanket his strange scene. “But she doesn’t know that. She never texted back. I could be at home, sobbing into my Hot Pocket and wanking into a dirty sock, and she’d never have any idea.”
    Matt dropped his own fork. That was an image that didn’t set well with his pasta carbonara. “You picked her up in a bar and slept with her on two hours’ acquaintance. What did you expect?”
    “I don’t know. You tell me.” Irony dripped from Lincoln’s voice. “You picked Whitney up in a bar and slept with her on two days’ acquaintance—and now you’re asking me for advice about what to do next. Well, this is my advice. It was a one-night stand, and about damn time too. Don’t call. Don’t write. Don’t ask her dad for her hand in marriage or some dumb shit like that. If she’s looking for a long-term relationship—and I seriously doubt she is—it’s not with some pathetic backwoods teacher like you. Accept the situation as divine intervention and move on.”
    Damn . It wasn’t often that Lincoln made sense—let alone the kind of sense that rang with actual truth.
    “I think I’m going to call her anyway.”
    Lincoln dropped his head to the table, the hollow thump of skull on wood loud enough to halt the background chatter and scraping of forks on plates. “What were her exact words when you left?”
    Matt refused to say them out loud—especially for Lincoln’s edification. Next time I’m determined to feel that beautiful cock of yours inside me , she’d said. She’d been smiling at the time, but the door had been closing slowly but firmly in his face before he’d barely had time to swallow his toast.
    Next time? Next time ? Did that mean they were firmly on the path to an actual relationship? Or would she just show up at his work again, smiling at him with that mouth—gorgeous, bright and firmly implanted in his memory as the best orifice on the face of the planet—over the heads of innocent children? Jesus . He still wasn’t sure what her parting words had been calculated to do, other than to have him hard and straining before he even got to his car.
    Which was exactly what had happened.
    “She said she wants to see me again,” he managed.
    “But she clearly stated it wasn’t a date? Like before you even went out?”
    “Well...yes.”
    “Fuck buddy,” Lincoln said firmly. “She intends to ride you until there’s nothing left for her to ride. Lucky bastard. I practically gave her to you the other night.”
    Across the room, the dark outline of a guy in a suit dropped to one knee in the unmistakable plunge of a man in love. All eyes turned in the direction of the couple, unashamed to witness a spectacle meant to be public in the best possible way. In fact, the entire restaurant seemed to suspend itself, all eating and talking and kitchen activity stalled for the brief minute it took for the man to stammer the most important question he’d ever ask in his life.
    It was too far away to make out any of the details, but the woman’s cry and the way she leaped out of her seat to launch herself at the man was all the confirmation Matt needed. Applause broke out all around them, and even Lincoln got caught up in the moment, holding up his glass of ice water in a mock toast.
    “Another one bites the dust,” Lincoln quoted solemnly, clearly not intending a joke. With a sidelong look at Matt—the same sidelong look he’d been getting for eight months now—Lincoln shook his head. “That’s one situation I’m really glad you got out of. I know you don’t like to hear it, but Laura was a stone cold bitch.”
    “She wasn’t,” he insisted, but he didn’t put much elbow grease into the protest. No amount of explaining could get his family to realize that he didn’t hate his