Play Dates Read online

  “Yeah, I left,” he said, lifting his face from his hands to gauge his friends’ reactions. “And I’m an idiot.”

  James sprawled in his seat, hooking one arm over the back of his chair as he poked one of the packages of string cheese he’d managed to retain at Colm. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about. You got yours, she got hers. Everyone went to sleep happy.”

  He acknowledged the veracity of the statement with a nod but refused verbal confirmation. “I liked her.”

  “I bet you did. I bet she liked you too.” James ripped open the packaging on the cheese, and spit the wrapper out. “Leave good enough alone.”

  Mike wrinkled his nose in distaste and turned his attention to Colm. “Did you tell her you’d call?”

  “Nope.”

  “Has she called you?” Mike persisted. Colm shook his head and his friend’s brows shot up. “Texted? Emailed?”

  “Leave your pet bunny boiling on your stove?” James chimed in helpfully.

  Colm rolled his eyes. “No, I haven’t heard from her. That was kind of the deal.”

  James gnawed through the little log of cheese like a beaver on a mission. “Why can’t I ever get that kind of deal?” He waved the cheese stump at Colm. “I’d love a deal.”

  “Sure you would,” Colm muttered.

  “You had a deal once,” Mike reminded him. “You got a bonus set of twins, remember?”

  “I meant the no strings thing.” James’ cocky smirk disappeared and a shudder shook his long frame. “Man, if I gave those twins a ball of string, you’d find me tied to the railroad tracks like in those old cartoons.”

  Colm could only chuckle. “I remember the first time someone told me to dose Aiden with cough medicine. I was so pissed I wanted to call child protective services on her. Now, I wish I could send her a thank you note.”

  “I understand why my parents drank so much,” Mike said, hoisting his beer bottle. “If Chrissie turns out anything like Megan, I should have a decent case of cirrhosis by the time I’m forty.”

  They all paused, paying the appropriate homage to the force of nature known as Mike’s sister Megan—the twins’ absentee mother—and to the near-certain demise of Mike’s liver.

  “Was she hot?” James asked, breaking the silence. Colm’s head jerked up when he caught the wistful note in the question. His buddy blustered on. “I saw she was built like a board, but was walking the plank a good time?”

  Narrowing his eyes, Colm zeroed in on his friend. “You’re an ass.”

  James shrugged. “Just got the memo?”

  Colm stowed his annoyance and took a good, hard look at his friend. Weariness etched the lines around his eyes and mouth a little deeper. His skin was pale but pastier than usual beneath the copper stubble. And despite his callous words, a soft gleam of longing burned steady in his eyes.

  Drawing a deep breath, Colm tried to form words into a sentence. “She was…”

  He started and stopped. Hot wasn’t the word. Monica had been a tour de force. Whip-smart and funny. Friendly and warm. Oddly easy to be with. How could he explain the nights he’d lain awake thinking about calling her, but always talking himself down? Contrary to their agreement, easy-going didn’t strike him as her style. The woman was clearly wound tighter than a spool of the string James was so hip to avoid. If he tugged, he might end up tangled up in her. Then what? She’d been burned, like him. Obviously. He was fairly certain Emma’s father wasn’t on the scene. No evidence of a man at her house. What if she was too scared to take a chance? Was he? Could he risk Aiden getting attached to her? What if he fell as hard for the daughter as he did the mother?

  “She was hot, or, were you looking for another word?” James prodded.

  Colm looked up to find both men watching him expectantly. Though the descriptor hardly did her justice, he went with the adjective for the sake of closing out the topic. “She was hot.”

  Grunting his disappointment, Mike reached to gather the cards. “Well, that commentary was hardly worth the build-up.”

  “What? You want the details?” He glanced from one man to another, and when neither demurred, he scoffed. “No. Sorry, girls, I’m not dishing the dirty.”

  James watched Mike shuffle the deck. “You were earlier.”

  “I was venting, not dishing.” Colm cut the deck Mike set in front of him neatly in half. “I just…It’s been a long time since I’ve dealt with any of this. Longer than you guys.” He shook his head as Mike started firing off cards like a professional dealer. The guy had no poker face, but he could deal like he’d been born in Vegas. “I don’t know why I thought you’d be any help.”

  “Mistake number one. There isn’t a guy at this table qualified to give dating advice.” Mike nodded as he gathered his hand. “Remember that.”

  “Two,” James said, leaning in. “Might’ve been a long time since you’ve been involved with someone, but I know it hasn’t been as long since you got laid.”

  Colm blinked. Time was a matter of perspective. The last time had been less than a year after Carmen died, which, when viewed in the context of the sleep-deprived haze of Aiden’s first three years of life, wasn’t so long ago. He’d had a couple near misses in the time since a sassy-but-sweet dispatch officer he used to work with popped his pathetic widower cherry, but he hadn’t been the least bit interested in seeing any of those women again. Which is why this week had been so disturbing. Built like a plank or not, Monica Rayburn was stuck in his head.

  Maybe he only needed to get a bigger dose of her. Surely he’d get sick of a bossy woman like her. Right? And the kid complications on both sides would likely get old fast. He’d sport her a couple bonus orgasms and work her out of his system so he could get back to living his life. Rearranging his hand of cards, he pulled a random heart out of what was shaping up to be a dandy collection of clubs and placed the card face down on the table. “I just need one.”

  “More than one wouldn’t hurt you, though.” Mike lounged in his chair, a smirk twisting his lips as he discarded two. “You’ve got her number, in more ways than one,” he added with a leer. “A second night isn’t a lifetime commitment.”

  “I thought you guys were all for leaving things as they were. The perfect date and all.” Colm shot James a sneer.

  “I’m only playing devil’s advocate. You don’t seem to be done with her, so why not milk the…arrangement for all it’s worth?”

  “An attractive picture you paint,” Mike muttered.

  James picked up the cards Mike tossed at him and scowled as he studied them. “Been a long time since anyone’s had anything worth talking about at this table.” He plucked a couple of mini packs of Teddy Grahams from the pile in front of them and flung them into the pot. “Cheer up. If Mikey wins his dick back in the divorce settlement, we could be talking about him next.”

  Protectiveness surged in Colm’s chest. When Carmen died and the web of lies she’d used to tie him down began to unravel, Mike stood solidly by his side. James came later, and though he appreciated the guy’s caustic humor most of the time, there were moments when the undercurrent between the quasi-brothers-in-law took him by surprise. He never particularly cared for James razzing Mike about his never-ending divorce proceedings. “What about you? Your dick fall off or something?”

  “I’m sticking to self-abuse,” James replied without pause or even a hint of humor. “Each minute I spend trying to keep up with those red-headed hellions, I’m more convinced celibacy is the only safe answer.” He looked up, his freckled face open and optimistic. “Hey, you think I’m too far gone to become a priest? I mean, they have to be desperate for applicants these days, right? I could dump Heckle and Jeckle off at the convent and boom! Free as a bird.”

  “Priests aren’t supposed to take matters into their own hands, either,” Mike reminded him, unstirred by their partner’s hyperbole.

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nbsp; Colm chuckled. They heard some version of the same escape fantasy at least once a week. Entertained a few of their own, too. But no matter how much James or any of the rest of them complained, they were all talk. Smirky jerk that he was, James was almost always as amused by the twins’ antics as he was annoyed. And he adored them. Unabashedly.

  Tossing his Teddy Grahams into the pot, Colm waited for Mike to follow suit. “Call,” he prompted when no one upped the bet.

  The three of them laid their hands on the table. His flush took Mike’s three sevens and James’s pair of deuces. He smiled, pleased with his haul. Teddy Grahams were Aiden’s favorite. He was going to be a happy boy when he opened his lunch box this week.

  “You should call,” Mike said quietly.

  Colm’s head jerked up and he stopped sorting his winnings. “What?”

  “Obviously you want to,” his friend continued. “What’s the worst she could say? No?”

  He blinked, taken aback by the quiet vehemence in Mike’s voice. James tossed a little fuel on the fire. “A simple ‘no’ is easy to take.” Ginger eyebrows shot up as he fixed Colm with a pointed stare. “The worst thing she can say is ‘I’m pregnant.’”

  A choked silence filled the room. All three of them had heard those words when they’d least expected them. Though the relationships hadn’t turned out great, those two little words were the precursor to the best things to ever happen to any of them. Two of them had done what they thought was the right thing and married. Mike and his soon-to-be-ex had been dating two years at the time, so the marriage and baby thing seemed like the next step. At least to him. Colm found himself exchanging vows with a woman he’d known for three months, but hadn’t known at all.

  Even James, who managed to side-step the altar altogether, hadn’t emerged unscathed. There was no way any man could prepare for the whiplash whims of a woman like Mike’s willful little sister. Megan had been the ultimate earth mother throughout her pregnancy, then the day of her six-week postpartum checkup, she took off for parts unknown. No one heard a peep from or about her until she showed up at the twins’ first birthday party.

  She stayed for less than half an hour.

  Though Mike often complained about his sister’s behavior, James liked to pretend he was okay with Megan’s free-to-be-me lifestyle. But underneath his bluff and bluster, the guy was as conventional as the rest of them in terms of parenting.

  Colm never expected to raise Aiden without a mother. Mike certainly never planned for his ex to walk out on her kids, completely ignoring her offspring until she discovered they were handy bargaining chips in her attempts to squeeze every last dime out of him in the divorce. And James, never the most reliable guy in the world, wasn’t exactly a prime candidate to be anyone’s be-all, end-all. Now he had small people who looked to him for everything, and Colm could honestly say he’d never seen the man let his children down.

  None of them signed on for this, but as much as they complained, not one of them would trade fatherhood for anything. Not even an endless buffet of stringless women. They were the ones with the strings. And with five kids five and under between them, the last thing any of them needed was another mess to clean up. He had all these reasons and more to leave the thing with Monica alone. They’d had a nice night. Pleasant. Exciting. Sexy. Beat the shit out of watching Princess Clarissa trill and twirl and smile all the time.

  As if he’d conjured her, the princess herself appeared in his lap. He looked down to find Aiden staring up at him, big brown eyes droopy with sleep. “Hey, buddy, what’s going on?”

  Without waiting for an invitation, Aiden ducked under his arm and clambered into Colm’s lap. One elbow jabbed straight into his ribs, and a bony knee nearly erased the possibility of ever finishing the job with Monica Rayburn or any other woman ever again.

  Pushing his chair away from the table, he squirmed in his seat as Aiden wiggled in his lap, seeking the comfy spot they both knew was there. The scents of bubble gum toothpaste and tear-free shampoo filled Colm’s lungs. Pressing his cheek to the crown of his little boy’s head, he took another hit. “Thirsty?”

  Never chatty when he first awakened, Aiden shook his head.

  “Bad dream?”

  “Huh-uh.”

  Too tired to let the guessing game play out, Colm grabbed the doll from between them and handed her to his son. Aiden wrapped his arms around the doll and hugged her to his narrow chest. Heaving a sigh of resignation, he shifted into interrogation mode. “Why are you out of bed?”

  “Jamie peed.”

  James rose and scooped his pile of snack packs into a crumpled grocery bag. “And there’s my cue.”

  Colm closed his eyes. The twins, Jamie and Jeff, and Mike’s son, Tyler, had all been sleeping curled up like kittens on Aiden’s new twin-sized bed, while Chrissie slept on the old toddler mattress nearby. Sighing into Aiden’s hair, he resigned himself to having company in his bed while he let the newly christened mattress air out.

  “Got some cleaner?” James asked, the tips of his ears glowing pink and his mouth set in a grim line.

  Feeling bad for the guy, Colm waved him off. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”

  “Sorry, man,” James mumbled, then took off to claim his kids.

  “You want help?” Mike asked, gathering his take into a Hello Kitty diaper bag.

  The bag gave both him and James ample opportunity to question their friend’s masculinity, but he claimed the moon-faced kitten was a chick magnet. The first time he’d brought the bag to the park, they’d literally cringed at the sight. Mike manfully shouldered the bag and carried his daughter over to one of the picnic tables for a quick change. A bevy of helpful mommies and nannies swarmed within seconds, and when Mike and Chrissie emerged, they were both beaming.

  “Nah. Gather your crew.”

  Aiden wriggled, his bony little butt slicing into the top of Colm’s thighs as he twisted to look up at him. He held up a package of teddy bear-shaped crackers, his dark eyes suddenly sharp with avarice. “Are these for me?”

  Without missing a beat, Colm divested his son of the purloined snack and rose from the table, dumping the boy over his shoulder like a squirming sack of potatoes. “Those are for lunches.”

  “I know where you hide them,” Aiden gasped between giggles.

  Colm’s lips twisted into an appreciative smirk. “Not anymore you won’t.”

  He paused at the end of the hall, watching as his buddies ushered their drowsy offspring toward the door. Jamie wore a pair of familiar-looking superhero pajama bottoms. As they approached, James followed his gaze and shrugged. “I’ll wash ’em and bring ’em next week.”

  Waving the offer away, Colm shook his head. “Keep them. They’re too small for sonny-long-legs.” He swung Aiden up and held on tight, hardly caring about Princess Clarissa’s attempt to implant herself in his ear when his little boy wound his spindly arms around his neck. “Night, guys.”

  “Night, guys,” Aiden echoed.

  The second the door closed behind their guests, Colm swung around and stalked down the hall. He paused outside the bathroom. “You need to go?”

  Aiden shook his head no, but his father wasn’t easily put off.

  “I think you should try.”

  “I don’ hafta,” Aiden whined, holding on tighter.

  “You wet my bed, and I’m making Princess Clarissa sleep in the puddle.”

  “Eww.” Aiden pulled away, his tiny face puckering.

  Knowing he’d won this round, Colm set his son down. With a playful swat on the bottom, he propelled the boy toward the master bedroom. “Go.”

  Five minutes later, Aiden was tucked into Colm’s big, empty bed. As he watched his boy snuggle in, he had to admit he was relieved. Sleeping alone sucked. If a kick or two in the kidney was the price he had to pay for some company, he’d endure. Even if admitting his lo
neliness did make him more than a little pathetic.

  Laughing at himself, he pulled the door partially closed. A peek into Aiden’s room showed James had stripped the sheets and mattress pad from the bed and piled them at the foot of the bed. A spot roughly the size of Lake Superior darkened the middle of the mattress. He took a step into the room and paid the ultimate price—a Lego, dead center in the arch of his foot. The colorful string of curses he uttered as he hopped around on one foot played at full volume through the baby monitor on the kitchen table. Gritting his teeth, he hopped to the relative safety of the hall, hit the wall, and slid down like a glob of ectoplasmic ooze.

  Letting his skull thud against the wall, he stared at the ceiling. The following night, he could regroup. Aiden would go to his grandparents’ again. The condo would be clean. He wouldn’t risk impaling himself on a building block. There’d be no one to kick him in the kidney. Nothing but the sound of his own breathing. And the memory of how sweet Monica Rayburn tasted and how hot those noises she made in her throat made him.

  No big deal to call and see if she was free, right? They’d pick up where they left off. Same rules. Same expectations. Or lack of expectations. Two

  nights wouldn’t mean there were strings. They simply had unfinished business. Shifting his weight, he freed his phone from his pocket and tapped the screen to bring up her contact info. Steeling his nerve, he opened a text window, ignored the throbbing in the sole of his foot, and began to type.

  Chapter 6

  She had every intention of sticking to her guns. Keeping her word. Respecting the boundaries they had drawn. He was the one who texted first. And he was the one to reestablish the rules.