by Simon, Misty
“Hey, bud, you need to pick up that bag and put it in the office, okay?” she said with a smile on her face, hoping it would keep the mood light.
A scowl briefly flickered over Justin’s face before he picked up the backpack and trudged into the office.
At least there hadn’t been a blowup or a meltdown. She would have bet her odds were only 50/50 on either outcome.
He came back out just as Nate, dressed in another pair of low-slung jeans and a tight, white T-shirt, came strolling through the door. The outfit was so like yesterday that all the spit dried up in her mouth. Why had she never realized how very sexy her best friend was? How had he been hiding under her nose this whole time? Was she really that blind? Part of her desperately wanted him to notice her in the same way after all these years. The other part of her knew she was so going to hell for lusting after him—astounding abs or not.
“Hey, Claudia.” Nate smiled, and something started to simmer down below. Justin came tearing across the room at that moment, like freezing water on her libido parade.
She still hadn’t justified how she could go after Nate when it might put Justin’s relationship with him in jeopardy. But those dimples were making it not seem to matter so much.
Justin was again talking a mile a minute, so Claudia couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Here was the boy she liked to remember instead of the sullen almost-teenager who had taken over her son’s body.
“So, anyway,” Justin said, all innocent eyes. “When are you going to take me to the batting cages again?”
Claudia sighed. He knew better than to invite himself to stuff, and hadn’t she just thought to take him to the batting cages herself?
She jumped in before Nate could say a word. “Hon, Nate is working on the store and has several other sites going. He probably doesn’t have time right now. But I made time Friday night, and I was going to take you myself.” He might need the distraction if he had to be in the same room with his absentee sperm donor.
She didn’t blame him for the skepticism on his face. She hadn’t been doing much with him lately beyond making dinner and telling him to do his homework. If she were honest with herself, she had to admit it was because he was being a pain in the ass. But that was no excuse, or at least not a good one.
“You are going to take me to the batting cages? You?” Justin crossed his arms and gave her his face of disbelief. It was not one she liked, quite honestly.
“Hey, guy, I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Justin.” Nate put a hand on her son’s shoulder and squeezed. “If your mom says she’s going to take you, maybe you should just be thankful and not lippy. You know what I mean?” Nate removed his hand, then stood with his arms crossed at his chest, the muscles of his biceps bulging in a way she had never noticed before.
She did not need the distraction.
“Okay, so with that settled, what’s up, Nate?” Maybe he had gotten a clue about her flirting and had come back to get something started. She could go with that distraction. She almost started batting her eyelashes, then stopped herself in time. She did not want any more offers of first aid.
“Yeah,” Nate said, looking like he always had. “I promised you dinner to celebrate your sale yesterday, and you demanded I pay. So I’m here to pay up.”
“I thought you said this weekend.” She leaned on the case instead of batting her eyelashes and wondered if he would notice her cleavage. So much for not acting like a floozy.
He didn’t notice at all. “Tonight works for me, too, as long as you don’t have any other plans. Like with some new guy your mom set you up with now that Edward is history.” He looked adorable with his lopsided grin and hair that should have been trimmed two weeks ago.
“We’d love to go,” Justin said inviting himself along. “And, Mom, you didn’t tell me Edward was gone. Good riddance, as Aunt Zoe says! We should celebrate that, too!”
Jeez. “Honey, we’re going to have to celebrate another night. Aunt Zoe and I have a lot to discuss about the shop. Sorry,” she said turning to Nate. “Can I take a rain check? Maybe it would be nice to have dinner next week after this thing Sunday is done. Can we make it for Monday?”
“Absolutely.” Nate tucked his hands into his pockets, straining the denim in interesting ways. “Rain check it is.”
And then she watched him walk out of Decadence, wondering if she shouldn’t have just gone and taken Justin to Zoe and taken Zoe’s advice. Damn!
****
Nate drove home from Decadence, not sure what to make of that conversation with Claudia. On the surface he wasn’t angry that she had turned him down for dinner. He’d gone in knowing she might have other things to do tonight. However, he was baffled.
He didn’t know what was going on with Claudia, but something was. If he had been a better friend, he would have stayed around or insisted she go to dinner with him. They could have talked out whatever was going on. As much as he was a guy and usually oblivious to a lot of what went on around him—his mother’s words—he didn’t miss the signs that Claudia was in distress.
His first guess was Peter being in town and what a shock that must be. But Claudia was up to anything, as far as he was concerned, and if she said she could handle it, then she could handle it.
But what was with the kinked-up smile? It was vaguely unsettling, and nothing about Claudia had been even mildly unsettling since they were twelve and he realized she was a “girl.” He’d suffered a crush but had put it aside when he realized she saw him as a non-guy, her best friend.
Pulling into his driveway, he rested his head back on the seat while the garage door opened. She was strong, and she would get through this, and as always he would be here for her, no matter what. In the meantime, he would keep an eye out for Peter and try to anticipate whatever she might need, from a shoulder to someone running interference.
And hopefully it would be enough. Peter would go home and they could get back to their regular lives. He was comfortable there. Had been for years. If Claudia was going through a tough time now, she would get over it like she always did, and then they would move on. Like they always did.
If Logan’s words about following after Claudia like a lovesick puppy followed him into the house, he ignored them. They were unfair and untrue. He always helped out his friend, and he wouldn’t stop now.
****
“What do you mean you pissed off our lawyer? How could you make Uncle Al mad? He’s one of the easiest-going guys around.” Claudia moved from the island in the middle of the kitchen and back to the counter. She slid the cubed chicken into the pan and used her wrist to move some hair off her cheek. She should have gone out to dinner with Nate. Even failing abysmally at flirting would have been better than this new headache.
“Not Uncle Al, he loves me. But for some stupid reason he made me talk with another guy in the same office, and I managed to piss him off.” Zoe snatched a carrot from the bowl and Claudia smacked her hand with a wooden spoon.
“If you’re not going to help with dinner, the least you could do is not eat it before I have a chance to cook it.” Standing at the sink, she washed her hands, paying special attention to her nails so she didn’t have to turn around just yet. Zoe could be impulsive and defensive. Maybe they should have gone in as a group.
“Why did you piss him off?” She turned around once she had herself under control. “It was a simple enough task. All you had to do was go in and get some information, then come back to let us know what we need to do.”
Zoe shrugged and looked down into the depth of the salad bowl as if it had the answers to the universe.
Hmmm.
“He just wasn’t very nice to me.” Zoe picked a cucumber out of the salad and popped it into her mouth.
Was she trying to avoid making eye contact? Definite hmmm. “What did he do?”
Now, normally Claudia would have her back up and be the first one to defend her sister. She’d already be in the car and on her way down to the law office to smack
some sense into this new lawyer guy, Uncle Al or no Uncle Al. But she also knew that Zoe was avoiding meeting her eyes, and Uncle Al was a very good judge of character. Something else was going on.
“He didn’t really do anything. But he did rub me the wrong way.”
“He rubbed you?” Claudia just wanted to see her reaction.
Sure enough, Zoe’s head flew up and her face turned red. “Of course not. I mean, he shook my hand when I left the office. He was fine, okay? Forget I said anything.”
“No, I don’t think I will forget about it.” Honestly, it would give her a chance to think about something other than her failure as a flirt. She’d obsessed all afternoon after talking to Nate and getting turned on by his mere voice. That was not going so well.
So maybe Zoe was having a hard time today too. Then again... “Was he cute?” She leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. A smile played over her mouth. She was fully aware it was smug.
Zoe gasped like a carp out of water for a while, and Claudia just stood there. It would be nice to see Zoe flounder a little bit with a man who didn’t fawn all over her. At twenty-five, she’d had one serious relationship that Claudia knew of, and it had ended badly. Her sister hadn’t been interested since, and it would be nice to have someone to go through the angst of dating with.
“That’s not an answer, Zoe. Fish impressions don’t tell me anything, you know. Sputtering isn’t pretty, either.”
“It doesn’t matter if he was cute or not. He’s obnoxious.”
“Which only tells me that you want him and don’t want to want him for some reason.” She turned back to the stovetop and gave the chicken a brisk stir. The sound of Justin stomping down the hallway from the back bedrooms put her on instant defensive alert. They were having a relatively good day so far, even with turning Nate down for dinner. Her offer of the batting cages tomorrow night was going a long way toward smoothing things out. But if Justin started asking about her love life again now that Edward was no more, she didn’t know what she was going to say.
She wanted Nate but would definitely not tell her son that, since it would be his fondest dream come true.
There was so much between her and Nate, so many years of good friendship, and she didn’t want to mess anything up. In her wildest dreams, though, she did want to ride the man straight into the sunset.
“That reason will not be discussed right now with your son coming out of his cave for dinner. If you’re nice, I might tell you later.”
With that, Zoe moved to the cabinets and started pulling out dishes and glasses. Putting them on the counter, she gave Justin the beady eye when he walked into the kitchen and threw himself into a chair.
“Okay, okay! Jeez. I’ll set the table already.”
Claudia leaned her forehead against the spice cabinet to the left of the stove. Normally he was a great kid, but something was bothering him lately, and she didn’t know how to get him to talk about it, other than beating it out of him. He was his normal happy-go-lucky self most of the time, but they’d have moments when the attitude would come popping out like this. Wasn’t the angsty stage supposed to come in a few years? Didn’t she at least have until the teenage years to wait for the attitude and backtalk?
Zoe raised an eyebrow, and they shared a look. Yeah, she remembered being a mouthy ten-year-old, too.
So her mother’s curse had come through with flying colors. She may have given birth to herself in male form and would have to endure the kind of teenager she had been. Sucked for her.
“Dinner’s ready. Let’s sit down and have a nice meal without the attitude, Justin. I’m not in the mood tonight.”
“You’re never in the mood for anything anymore. You probably won’t even take me to the batting cages like you said. Nate would take me, if you’d let him.”
“It’s not Nate’s job to watch you and keep you occupied all the time. He should be allowed to have a life of his own every once in a while, you know.” Although that life could seriously change for the better, in her opinion, if his mission changed to trying to keep her happy. And if she could just figure out how to let him know she was interested, maybe that would be a possibility. But how do you tell the man who has seen you at your worst that you want him to think you’re sexy? Especially when she couldn’t even remember how to flirt properly?
She had been horrified to remember earlier that she had once even breastfed in front of him. There was no hope for her.
“Yeah, but Nate likes to spend time with me. And he’d spend even more if you’d stop going out on those stupid dates and just hang out with him and me.”
For one insane second she almost asked if Nate had said anything about wanting to see more of her. Fortunately, she stopped herself before she’d even opened her mouth. “Just eat.”
He munched and crunched his way through dinner, then got up as soon as he’d shoveled the last spoonful of peas into his mouth. “I’m going to play some video games.”
“Is your homework done?”
“Yes, Mom. Yeesh.” He tromped back down the hall much the way he’d come up it less than twenty minutes ago.
“Am I really that naggy of a mom?” Claudia asked, sitting with her elbow cocked on the table.
“Oh, sweetie, you remember what it was like at that age. I think the more important question is whether or not Nate has given Justin a reason to think your dates are dorky. Aside from them actually being dorky.”
“I don’t want to go there right now. I had a terrible afternoon trying to remember at least one time I’d been sexy in front of Nate over the last ten years. And the definitive answer was never. Other than going out on dates with other men and him seeing me when I came back in my flats from some date with a shorty, he hasn’t seen me dressed up in forever. No wonder he thought I had something in my eye. I’m a failure as a woman.”
“You are not! I don’t ever want to hear you say that again.” Zoe shoved back her chair and whisked plates off the table, going so far as to take Claudia’s plate even though she was still trying to eat her chicken.
“Hey, do you mind bringing that back? I don’t inhale my food the way you and the monster do.”
Zoe at least had the grace to blush. “Sorry.”
Plate back on the table in front of her, Claudia pushed it away, realizing that her appetite had vanished. “I’m just being dumb, anyway. There’s no way a guy like Nate would want me when he has so many other women available to him. I have so much baggage I need my own valet.”
“Don’t say that, either. Everyone has something.” Zoe moved toward the sink and Claudia couldn’t see her face, but something in her voice was wrong.
“What’s up? Are we back to the lawyer?”
“No, we’re not back to the lawyer because I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Come on. It would give me something to think about other than the disaster my love life has turned into.” Claudia got up and nudged Zoe over to the sink to fill it with water while she finished clearing the dishes of her completely uninspired meal.
“I just think men should be a little less like dogs, is all. And this guy is a major hound.”
“But I thought you hadn’t met him before today. I haven’t even heard of him before this afternoon.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of him, all right, and none of it good.” Zoe threw a spatula into the dishwater and had suds splashing onto the front of her shirt and Claudia’s. “Crap. Look at that. He even made me ruin my best T-shirt.”
“Zoe, that T-shirt is older than Justin. I highly doubt you could ruin it at this point. And why are you so down on him?”
Zoe seemed to struggle with something internally. Then her shoulders slumped, and she sank her chin to her chest.
Tucking a finger under Zoe’s chin, Claudia lifted her sister’s face. “You know you can tell me anything.”
“It’s not a big deal. Let’s just say that it sucks to find a man you would give all capital letters to and make him
a MAN in your mind, and he turns out to have given something a little more substantial to five women in the last five weeks.”
“Oh.” Claudia let that process through her brain and got the rest of the dishes from the table, allowing Zoe to elaborate if she wanted to.
Apparently she wanted to. “Here’s the thing. I’ve had this client I was just talking to May about today. I was bitching because he’s sent five pretty big bouquets to five different women, one a week. I told her what an absolute beast he is and that I was really tempted to attach my own little note to the flowers telling the ladies to beware because they weren’t the only one or even two.” She wiped the back of her hand over her forehead to move some hair that had fallen forward. “Then I go into Uncle Al’s office thinking I’m going to see my favorite guy, and instead come face to face with a serious hunk o’ male who is totally drool worthy. I’m spinning fantasies—until I hear his name and realize it’s the flower dog.”
Claudia tried hard not to laugh. This wasn’t funny, except that many things came easy to Zoe, and a little shake-up wasn’t going to be the end of the world for her. “How can you know for sure it was him?”
Zoe slapped a hand into the water and grabbed more silverware to wash. “I can’t wait to see you fall, and I mean seriously fall, for Nate. I am so going to enjoy the ride. And the reason I know is that no one else in town has a name like Dexter Zegray.”
“That is true, I guess. Hmmm, Zoe Zegray. Has a nice ring to it.”
Zoe slapped the water again, but this time she hit Claudia in the chest with the warm soapy water and the fight was on.
Later that night, though, Claudia couldn’t help thinking about whether “Claudia West” also had a nice ring to it. She’d known Nate forever and yet had never written his and her names inside a heart in a notebook at school. Never wrote “Mrs. Claudia West” with a heart dotting the I. Never put their initials with the plus sign between. Never even considered him a real male. He had always just been her best friend. Why did she have to go and get all hormonal and lusty? What if she ruined everything?
