Kissing Zara had been a dumbass thing to do. Obviously. My lizard brain had bested me.
But—Jesus Christ. The attraction had been mutual. I wasn’t crazy. And I didn’t know why she’d been so fucking offended.
Oh right—because I’d gone and made a big deal out of it. I’d thrown her attraction back in her face, as if all the sex we’d had was something to be ashamed of.
It wasn’t. Or it shouldn’t be.
Shit. I’d never been more confused.
When the water finally ran cold, I toweled off and got dressed. Though our encounter still played on repeat in my head. The impulse to kiss her had been so strong. Then she’d gotten mad, even before I’d shot my mouth off. But feeling our old attraction rear up between us hadn’t been a hardship for me. Honestly, it helped me to remember why we’d ended up making a baby in the first place.
Did she actually want me to pretend we were strangers who’d never felt a thing? I didn’t think I was a good enough actor.
I didn’t understand Zara at all. And maybe I never had. The Beringers were missing the gene for understanding how relationships worked.
Hopefully I hadn’t passed that trait on to my child along with my red hair.
When I went downstairs, Castro was sitting at the kitchen counter, eating grapes and scrolling through his phone messages. “Hey, Beri. Your sister called.”
Shit. “Did she say what she wanted?”
“Negative.” Castro looked up. “Something wrong?”
“Other than everything?” I stole one of his grapes and popped it in my mouth.
He frowned. “That yoga class must have sucked, because usually it makes you all Zen and shit.”
“Zara was there.” I opened the refrigerator and studied its contents. Leo had gone home to Brooklyn, so Castro and I would be the only ones here for a few days. We were almost out of food. Time to do some shopping.
“Ah. That’s why you’re a grumpy bear?”
“I kissed her.”
“During yoga?”
“No,” I grunted. “After.”
“Hmm. It didn’t go over well?”
“We had words. I might have been a dick.”
“Again?”
“Yeah.” I chose a container of yogurt.
“Huh. Are you still invited to lunch on Sunday?”
“Good question. She never sent me the directions, so maybe I was never invited in the first place.” Now there was a clue I should have heeded.
“Do I need to get you drunk already? Or can we still hike to that waterfall first?”
I grunted. “Sure.”
“Call Bess and then we’ll go.”
Right.
I waited until Castro went into his room—he’d claimed the queen-sized bed that O’Doul had just vacated—before I dialed Bess from the landline. My sister had left Vermont, too—visiting clients on the West Coast somewhere, and it was just as well. She’d throttle me if she knew I’d caused drama for Zara.
“Davey,” she said by way of a greeting.
“Bessie.”
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Then why do you sound all bitchy?”
“You can tell just from the way I say ‘fine’?” I snapped, proving her point for her.
“Did something happen?”
“Nope,” I lied. “Do you have any news about my contract?”
She was silent for a second. “No, honey. I just called to see how you were holding up.”
Great. I’d walked into this trap for nothing.
“There wouldn’t be any news, though,” she said. “You were supposed to be thinking about whether or not you wanted to take the two-year or the three-year.”
“I know that. But I thought maybe you’d had an idea for me. I was thinking about the no-trade clause. We could drop that for the third year, maybe. If they could trade me, they might pay me more.”
She sighed. “Davey, we already dropped the no-trade in year three. That’s how they’re offering you a third year at all. Didn’t you read the deal memo I sent?”
Awkward silence. “Not closely enough, I guess.” I hadn’t done a fucking thing since I’d come to Vermont except implode. “Never mind.”
“Listen.” My sister’s voice went soft. “Maybe we don’t need to renegotiate your contract early. You have a lot going on. We could tell management that you’re having some unexpected family drama this summer and we weren’t as ready to negotiate as we thought we were.”
I groaned. “But they’re not going to like me any better this winter. I should just sign the thing before we tell the PR department that I have drama.”
“It’s not news, though,” my sister said immediately. “You have a child. Like anyone.”
“Don’t blow smoke up my ass, Bess. You told me yourself that we have to warn the PR department.” If some internet rag decided to make Zara and Nicole into their next gossip nugget, I couldn’t have team management caught off-guard.
“We’re going to tell them about Nicole, but it’s not a big deal to them. Do you want me to postpone the contract talks?”
“Don’t say anything to them yet. I’m still thinking.”
“Okay,” she said softly. “Hang in there.”
“Thanks,” I grunted. We said our goodbyes, and I disconnected.
Then I whistled up Castro and took him hiking, hoping that the world would start making sense again soon. And in the meantime, I needed to go hiking and schedule another PT appointment in Burlington.
Chapter Nineteen
Zara
“Why the long face?” Audrey asked the next day as we stood behind the counter at The Busy Bean eating lunch. The lunch was chicken salad with grapes and blue cheese, and it was just as fabulous as everything else Audrey made.
“It’s not the food,” I said, shoveling another bite in. I could eat my weight in Audrey’s chicken salad.
“Then what is it? Man troubles?”
“Sort of. I freaked out at Dave yesterday.” That was a horrible understatement. I was too embarrassed to tell Audrey that I had actually slapped him.
“Why?”
“He kissed me.”
Her eyebrows disappeared into her bangs. “Wow. Go, Dave.”
“We can’t, Audrey. Our days of wild sex together are over.”
She blinked at me and then pinched her top between two fingers and fanned her chest with it. “Wild, huh? Like…really wild? Give me a visual.”
“No way.” Although since he’d come back to town, my dirty mind was full of them. “He’ll never try it again, anyway. I can promise you that.”
She made a sad face. “Time to apologize?”
“Obviously. But there’s a text from him on my phone, and I’m afraid to look. I’m half afraid it says, ‘Decided to go back to Brooklyn. Nice knowing you.’”
“I’ll look.” She held out her hand for my phone.
I took another bite of chicken salad. For courage. Then I unlocked my phone and handed it over.
Audrey tapped on the screen a couple of times, then smiled. “Aw!”
“What?”
She turned the phone around and showed me. It was a picture of Dave on the summit of a hill somewhere. I was temporarily distracted by the view of his muscular thighs emerging from his shorts. But then I noticed he held a handmade sign—marker on paper—which read: Insensitive Jerk Alert. And then in parentheses, But he’s sorry.
“Well, shit,” I sputtered. “He apologized first, damn him.”
“That is freaking adorable,” Audrey said. “Come on. We have to make your reply just as cute.”
“How?” I wasn’t sure I deserved to be cute. I’d been really out of line earlier and didn’t know how to come back from that.
Audrey grabbed an order slip off the stack and slapped it onto the counter. Then she took a Sharpie out of our junk drawer and handed it to me.
What to say to this man who scared me so badly? I’d never given anyone such powe
r over my emotions before. I hadn’t meant for it to happen. But his appearance, disappearance, and subsequent reappearance had all wreaked havoc on my psyche.
I might as well turn my apology into something cute, because I was never going to tell him how I really felt.
The pen was heavy in my hand. Finally, I uncapped it and wrote:
Awful Drama Queen Alert
(She’s even MORE sorry)
“That’ll do,” Audrey said. “Hold it up.” But when I did, she waved me over to the side. “Stand there—in front of the wooden beam. That’s cute. Now uncross your arms and look sexy.”
“I don’t know how to do that. Just take the damned photo.”
“Smile, damn it.”
I tried.
At long last, Audrey took the photo. “I’m hitting Send so you can’t chicken out.”
“Fine.” I wouldn’t have, anyway.
“You should go home,” she said, handing back my phone. “It’s my day to close.”
It was. “See you tomorrow.”
“Hey.” She stopped me. “Can I drop off my wedding favors on Sunday?”
“Of course. Later!”
Audrey gave me another cheery wave, and I went home to find Benito on the couch with Nicole giggling on his chest. “No really,” he said to my baby girl. “When are you going to talk? Just one word. Ben. B-b-b-ben!”
She howled.
“You think this is funny? This is serious business. Your mama is home.”
Nicole gave a little shriek and climbed off my twin.
“You sent Mom home?” I asked, scooping her up.
“She went to get her hair done.”
“Nice of you to step in.”
“If you want to be the favorite uncle, you have to put in the hours.” He sat up. “Hey—Audrey invited me to her wedding.”
“Yeah? That was nice of her.” I wasn’t going to tell him that Audrey kept extra invitations in her purse because we lived in a small town and she’d invited pretty much everyone. The wedding had begun as a modest affair at the Shipley orchard, and then had morphed into a huge party at the Shipley farm. Multiple tents. Catered barbecue. Two different groups playing live music. Audrey’s rich mother was footing the bill.
“She says you don’t have a date.”
“Like that’s news?” Nicole started plucking at my T-shirt so I sat down beside my brother and lifted my shirt.
“I’ll go with you if you need one. But I’d offered to tend bar that night for Smitty so he could go to the wedding.”
“I don’t need a date to Audrey’s wedding.” I made the baby comfortable and sighed as she latched on. “Mom is babysitting for me, so I can’t stay late, anyway.”
“Okay,” my brother said slowly. “It’s just that, well…”
“It’s weird for me to be in Griff’s wedding?”
He grinned. “Not weird. Uncomfortable.”
I shook my head. “It’s okay. That was a long time ago. It’s not uncomfortable.” Not much, anyway. “Thanks, though. You might as well tend bar.”
“All right.” He stood up. “You think I can toss the bottles around like Tom Cruise in Cocktail?”
“If that’s your goal in life, have at it.”
He left, and just after the door clicked shut, my phone vibrated in my back pocket. I fetched it carefully so as not to disturb the nursing princess. She was drinking in slow, lazy pulls.
Another text.
David: Don’t apologize. I realize I shouldn’t have assumed anything.
Zara: Not a big leap, though. Historically. And I could have disengaged without violence! Seriously, that was not cool and I’m sorry. If I saw you hit someone I would *not* think it was okay.
David: Not a hockey fan, then?
Zara: That’s different. I think. Isn’t it?
David: I’m not the kind of player who fights, generally. But I was just making a joke, Z. Let’s just move on. I’m truly sorry I assumed things.
Zara: I’m truly sorry I hit you.
David: Serious question. Am I coming on Sunday or not? It’s okay either way but Sunday is in 48 hours so I need some guidance.
What to do? I was anxious about the testosterone-fest that Sunday might be—my uncles and brothers, all staring him down. On the other hand, if Dave decided to play a part in his daughter’s life, the uncomfortable gathering would happen sooner or later. Kindergarten graduation, maybe. Or Christmas?
The idea of seeing Dave a couple of times a year to facilitate visits with Nicole made my heart lurch with both excitement and dread. No matter how many years went by, I’d always look at his handsome face and think, if only.
David: You are thinking really hard over there.
I really was.
Zara: You should come. I’ll text the details today. I promise.
Dave: Okay gorgeous. Now I should go. I’m standing in a river right now, trying to catch a fish.
Zara: Really?
He sent a selfie a minute later, and I laughed aloud. Shorts and waders was a pretty silly look. But, damn him, Dave was still hotter than a July afternoon.
That pang? It would never go away.
Zara: Funny, I’m doing exactly the same thing right now.
Dave: Seriously?
Zara: No. But it’s nice to know you’re so gullible.
I held up my phone and took a picture of Nicole and I nursing on the couch. Her eyes were half-mast, her little mouth slurping lazily at my breast. It was a hundred percent reality and not the least bit sexy.
After I hit send, I sent him directions to my family’s farm.
Chapter Twenty
Dave
I dream of Zara. Daylight. White sheets. Filtered sunlight on soft, bare skin.
We’re tangled up in bed together, her body under mine. I sink down into her curves. We’re wound so tightly together that my hips move in shallow, inadequate thrusts. She makes breathy, desperate sounds. We’re never going to stop. The wanting will never be sated. I grip her more tightly and moan. Our mouths are locked into one long kiss.
But then I hear it—the baby crying. She’s wailing, and it’s been going on a while. I just didn’t notice until now.
I pull back, but Zara grips me even more tightly.
The baby lets out an agonizing cry and…
* * *
I woke up sweaty, my breath coming too fast. Also, I was really fucking hard.
Letting out an entirely different kind of moan, I threw off the sheets to get some air.
Really, brain? A mashup of the sexy dream and the baby screaming? It was almost funny.
Almost.
It was Sunday morning. I lay there a little while, waiting for both my body and my fucked-up mind to relax. When I picked up my phone, I saw it was ten a.m. I still had plenty of time to shower and get ready for the midday meal at Zara’s uncles’ farm.
The phone was open to that photo Zara had sent me. I didn’t know how long I’d looked at it yesterday, but it was longer than I cared to admit. I was drawn to it, and I didn’t know why. It wasn’t meant to be a sexual shot. I wasn’t perving on the nursing mother.
Okay, I was, a little. She was so casually voluptuous in the photograph. And her smile was cheeky.
But there was more to it than that. There was my sleepy baby’s head in the shot, her face serene, her little hand curled comfortably around the fabric of Zara’s T-shirt. The two of them so cozy and so complete. Like they belonged together.
And Zara’s smile was wise. Like she knew secrets I’d never learn. One of us had grown up a whole lot in the last two years, and it wasn’t me.
I put the phone down and rolled over in bed. But my hungry body imagined Zara underneath me—the Zara of two years ago, who’d wanted me only for sex. My cock thickened again, as it always did when I remembered those nights. I trapped my palm between the mattress and my dick and flexed my hips. Her body had welcomed me in. I’d fucked her so eagerly and then…
Gripping myself, I pictured sp
illing into Zara, planting my seed inside her as we slowly kissed, coming down from the high we’d given each other.
I took my hand away and wondered what the fuck I was thinking. We’d made a baby, and I shouldn’t find that sexy at all. It was irresponsible. It was exactly the thing I’d never meant to do.
What the hell was wrong with me?
* * *
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Castro asked me when I came downstairs a couple hours later, freshly showered and shaved.
I glanced down at my khakis and oxford shirt. “What’s wrong with it?” I thought I looked fine.
“Where’s the body armor?” He cracked up at his own joke.
“You’re hilarious.” I grabbed a banana off the kitchen counter and peeled it.
“Need a last minute pep talk? I think I should show you how to change a diaper.”
“Why? I’m not babysitting. Her whole family will be there.”
“It’s not babysitting if it’s your own kid,” Castro pointed out. “Besides, I thought you wanted to make a statement that you can handle whatever gets thrown at you. Even if it’s a poopy diaper.”
My reluctance to be someone’s daddy had nothing to do with diapers and everything to do with my pessimistic attitude. “The only point I want to make to her family is that I’m not afraid to show up and look ’em in the eye. But I’m not anyone’s idea of Mr. Family Man. I’m not going to pretend.”
“Thing is, you are a family man now. Whether you’re just a check in the mail, and not a show-up-every-Sunday kind of dad, you’re still in it forever. Just like I’m an uncle to my nephews forever, whether I’m a good one or not.”
I scowled at him, because that was exactly what freaked me out. He’d just stated the problem in all its glory. “What is your point? I don’t think a diapering lesson is going to make me into a good daddy.”
“You gotta start somewhere. I learned, and I don’t have a kid.”
I ate the banana, getting grumpier by the second.
“Babies are so cool,” he said, oblivious to my discomfort. “They will laugh at anything. For some reason, my sister’s youngest thinks the top of my head is hysterical. All I have to do is lean over him and he grabs my hair and laughs.”