Page 45 of Perfect Enough

I shook my head. “No, I’m good. I’ll just change and meet you back in the family room.”

He gave me a nod. “Sounds good. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

I watched as he made his way out of the bedroom, softly shutting the door.

My eyes closed, and I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. I looked around the room once more, then went and sat down on the bed.

“What are you doing, Sophia? You’ve gone off and started liking him.”

Dropping back onto the bed, I stared up at the ceiling. Who was I even kidding? I was pretty sure I liked Josh after that first day of texting.Meeting him and seeing what a great guy he was just made me like himmore.

After a few minutes of lying there, I quickly changed into flannel pants and a long-sleeve T-shirt. Josh’s sister and I must be about the same size. He’d even given me a pair of fuzzy socks. When it came time to sleep, the borrowed clothes would have to go. I was a hot sleeper, and winter clothes in summer were a hard pass. I draped my dress over the desk chair before going to the bathroom. Reaching up, I pulled the pins out of my hair andlet it fall around my shoulders. It felt so good to let it down. I often get a slight headache when I wear my hair up, but luckily, not this evening.

Looking at myself in the mirror, I drew in a deep breath and let it out.

“Friends, Sophia.Just friends.”

As I walked out of the bedroom and down the small hall toward the kitchen, I smelled popcorn and grinned. Standing in the kitchen, Josh was pouring popcorn into two bowls.He had changed and was wearing sweats and a light blue T-shirt. The man could make anything lookGQon him.

“I hope you like popcorn.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who doesn’t like popcorn,” I replied as I walked up and took a piece, popping it into my mouth.

“One of the other firefighters hates it.”

“What?!”

He laughed. “I know. We all tell him he’s weird. He can’t even stand the smell of it. I think he has some sort of PTSD, and popcorn is the trigger.”

“That’s so sad. I wonder what happens when he walks into a movie theater.”

Josh handed me a bowl. “He doesn’t go to them.”

My mouth fell open. “That’s even sadder.”

“Did you need more water, or would you like something else?”

I chewed on my lower lip and tried to decide if I should ask if he had any wine.

“By that look on your face, you want something else.”

“This might sound weird, but do you have any wine?”

“Red or white?”

“Which do you think would go better with popcorn?”

Josh looked up as if giving my question a great deal of thought. “I’m going to go with red.”

I smiled. “Any red will do!”

We walked into the family room and set the popcorn down. Josh crossed to the bar and grabbed a bottle of wine and two glasses.

“The remote is right there on the side table.”

Grabbing it, I turned on the TV and promptly started to look for something to watch.

Josh handed me the glass of wine, and I pulled my legs up onto the comfortable leather sofa.