chapter Three
Nate West groaned on the floor, attacked and quite possibly maimed by the figure looming over him. He’d just been stabbed in the heart with a spatula and was down for the count. “No, Master Zofo, do not deal the death blow, please, I beg of you.”
“Bwahahahaha! I can do no less. You have committed treason, and for that you must pay!”
Raising his hand in the air, Nate cowered away from the ten-year-old boy with the apron hanging around his neck and down his back, an old Scooby Doo tie wrapped around his waist to hold his weapons. The boy stood spread-legged, brandishing the deadly spatula.
“There will be no mercy.” Justin Bradley, aka Master Zofo—Claudia had always been a big Led Zeppelin fan—jabbed out with the spatula, and Nate thanked God it was made of rubber.
“Hey man, watch the goods.”
Justin broke character and started giggling. “Sorry, Nate, I didn’t mean to get you in the gonads.”
Another giggle. Nate took the opportunity to wrestle the boy to the floor and start his very own torture.
“No, no, no,” Justin screamed, laughing the whole time. “Not the Tickle Maruchan.”
“Yes, I know I cannot kill the all-powerful, immortal Master Zofo, but I may vanquish him with tickle.”
The doorbell rang, breaking Nate’s concentration. It cost him. He tried to crawl to the door, but Justin held onto the back of his thigh and gave a war whoop as they inched their way to the front door. When fingers dug into his ribs, Nate yelled, “Help!” still laughing.
Then Claudia walked in, bent down, and tickled him, too.
“That’s not what I meant,” he gasped as her fingers assaulted his ribs. He almost got an eyeful of boob when he tried to sit up. But she backed off with a half smile and a flip of her blonde hair.
He cleared his throat and shuffled Justin off his body. “You’re no help.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.” The smile stayed in place, kinking up the side of her mouth. “You’re a big strong man. I thought you could take it.”
Pulling Justin up by his apron strings, Nate set him on his feet and brushed him off, using the time to let his pant legs fall back down from his knees. He tried to figure out what had made that smile different from the ones she normally wore. He was used to her playfulness. How couldn’t he be, after almost twenty years in each other’s pockets? But there was something vaguely unsettling about that tiny crinkle on the left side.
“Before you ask how the date was, don’t.” Claudia held up a hand, and her bracelets clinked as they slid down her arm.
He got Justin on his way to the kitchen with a swat to his rear end and told him to get his stuff together. “That bad, huh?”
“Didn’t I just tell you not to ask?” She crossed her arms over her chest, cocked a hip out to rest against the doorway to the living room, and flipped her hair back over her shoulder, again.
“Sorry, I just thought you’d want to talk about it.” Like you always do, he thought but didn’t say.
Part of him felt sorry for her. She’d invested a lot of time into that relationship. But the other, bigger, part of him was glad she’d finally realized what an ass the man was. Edward had never been good enough for her, just like all the other men who had come and gone from her life.
“At least that’s over,” she said, breaking into his thoughts. And then she started blinking really fast and dipped her head down.
“So no more Edward, at all?”
More fluttering eyelashes. Was she having a problem?
“Nope. Edward has gone the way of the cream-filled doughnuts I tried to make in twelfth grade.” Crossing her ankles, she bumped the hip out some more and shrugged her shoulder.
“Well, I’m sorry to hear it.”
“No, you’re not.” She tapped him lightly on the arm and stuck her tongue out at him. “You hated him just as much as Zoe did. Don’t try to pretend differently.”
Thankfully, he was saved by Justin running back into the living room with his arms full of all his stuff. His plastic sword stuck up from his back above his ear, his comic books were crushed against his thin, young chest.
“Ready, Mom. Let’s go, let’s go!” As Justin ran back and forth right next to Claudia’s non-leaning hip, he nearly knocked her over.
“In a minute,” she said, batting her eyelashes again.
Finally, Nate had to ask. “Can I get you something for that?”
The batting stopped, and her gray eyes opened wide. “For what?”
“Well, I think it’s stopped. It looked like you had something stuck in your eye there for a minute. I didn’t know if you needed to wash it out.”
She heaved a sigh, and her eyes went back to normal. “No. No, nothing in my eye, but thanks for the offer.” Her shoulders drooped, then she seemed to shake off whatever it was and stood straighter. “Hey, thanks again for watching him on such short notice. It may be a while before I go out on any dates again, so I won’t impose on your time.”
He ruffled Justin’s hair. “You know it’s no hardship to watch my guy. It doesn’t only have to be when you need to go out, does it?”
“Um, no, of course not.” She uncrossed her arms. He’d never seen her so stiff before.
“Are you sure something’s not wrong? You look uncomfortable.” He laughed to release some of the weird tension in the air. “Or is it just the new shoes?” He hadn’t seen her wear heels on a date in months.
“Yeah, you know how I hate wearing flats, and now I don’t have to anymore. I’m going to symbolically burn those when I get home. You like the new ones?” She turned her ankle to showcase the almost-three-inch heel, and he made the appropriate noises.
She returned to Justin and crouched down to his level. “Ready to go, buddy?”
“Yep. I was ready to go like twenty minutes ago.”
“It wasn’t twenty minutes.” Nate eyed him from beneath lowered eyebrows. “Your mom just got here, and you know it. No games.”
“All right, all right. Yeesh! You sure are bossy.”
“And you’re short, but I don’t hold that against you,” Nate shot back, ruffling Justin’s hair.
“So on that note,” Claudia said, giving the back of Justin’s head a flick, “we need to go. Thanks again, Nate. We’ll see you soon.” That kicky little smile hitched up the corner of her mouth when she looked back over her shoulder as they were leaving.
He shut the front door, not knowing what the hell was going on with Claudia. Maybe she was developing some kind of facial tick. That would be sad.
****
Justin was in bed finally and settled down for the night when Claudia came back into the living room and accepted a glass of wine from Zoe. The horrendous shoes had literally been burned and thrown into the dumpster out back. But even that hadn’t made her feel better.
“I was a mess.”
Zoe sat back in the loveseat covered in throw pillows and two afghans, her legs tucked under her, looking relaxed, while Claudia felt twisted into the remnants of a used icing bag.
“I highly doubt that,” Zoe said and took a sip of her own wine. She sagged back against the sofa and blew out a breath. “There’s no way you are that out of practice. You used to have a wicked flirt going on.”
“Yeah, almost eleven years ago. That’s not exactly a recommendation.”
Zoe waved a hand in the air. “You don’t need a recommendation. It’s like riding a bike.”
“I haven’t ridden a bike in almost seven years. You’re not making me feel any better. I was an abysmal failure with Nate. He asked me if I needed to wash out my eye! He probably thinks I have some kind of new disease or something.” The horror of it was she did feel like she was contracting some kind of flu bug. Or maybe it was just her complete ineptness at catching the eye of a man who wasn’t three inches shorter and balding. Men like that flocked to her and she didn’t have to do a damn thing. Yet now when she wanted something more... “I made a complete ass out of myself.”
Zoe snickered. “Seriously, I highly doubt he even noticed, if he thought you needed some eyewash.”
“You are not helping. Again. Why does this always seem so easy when you do it, but I fail miserably?” And she did mean miserably. How embarrassing. She’d thought she was using some of her best moves, and he’d offered her first aid.
“We’ll work on it. As long as you put yourself completely in my hands, I can have you back in excellent flirting condition within days.” She arched an eyebrow. “But you have to put yourself completely in my hands.” The other eyebrow joined the first. “Completely.”
The twisted icing bag burst and splattered. She could already tell this was not going to be her best idea. She’d see how she felt after some much-needed sleep.
****
After getting Justin off to school with minimum fuss the next day, Claudia made her way downstairs. She was not going let her sister tutor her on flirting. She admitted she might have gotten off to a rocky start with Nate. She’d simply been a bit tongue-tied after seeing him with his shirt partially off—those abs had truly been stumble-worthy. But if she wanted Nate to see her as something more than his best friend of the last two decades, then she’d have to be herself. Not some floozy.
She thought about that as she took cake orders and directed three calls to Zoe for flower orders and another call to May for a dress for an upcoming fiftieth high school reunion at the American Legion down the road.
She had a list a mile long for the upcoming days—six weddings over the next two weeks, and a handful of anniversaries, along with the cakes for that reunion—and now her mother was making noise about retiring. She’d come in this morning all chipper with her announcement, totally missing how rocked Claudia felt about her leaving permanently.
Mona Bradley had been in talks with May about May filling in more and eventually taking over as a partial owner of the shop, but now was not the time to step up the timetable, with the wedding season upon them. Despite wanting to tell their mom to please wait until September or after, Claudia had sent Zoe to talk with their uncle (and lawyer) to see what it would take to allow Mona to retire. Normally, Claudia would have jumped at the chance to see Uncle Al, but her schedule was filled to the limit.
How she thought she was going to fit in a romance—or even some kind of friends-with-benefits arrangement—was beyond her. Quite honestly, she told herself, she had waited this long, she could wait a little bit longer.
The grandfather clock in the corner of the cake shop struck three, and Claudia waited expectantly for Justin to come in after getting off the bus.
Cleaning up the counter over the front display case, Claudia hoped it had been a good day. They had a good streak of days coming, as far as she was concerned, to make up for the crappy ones recently. In fact, she planned on running by him the idea of going to the batting cages after dinner on Friday. Maybe it would keep the good mood rolling.
Her son came hustling through the door as the last gong struck. He was full of chatter and actually hugged her before throwing his bag behind the counter.
Claudia struggled for a moment with what to do. He knew he was supposed to put his backpack into the small office so things were not a mess in the shop, but they were having such a good day, with his mouth going a mile a minute. Did she really want to potentially ruin this little piece of bliss they were experiencing? Ten years of mothering by herself kicked in, though, and she just couldn’t let it slide.
“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?
Indecision was riding her back like a nasty monkey. Sure, she’d doubted herself time and again about what she was doing, if she was raising Justin right, what to wear to dinner. But she hadn’t had this male/female indecision in a very long time. The old Claudia would have just gone for it, but she found this Claudia was more gun shy than she’d thought.
Finally, she fell asleep, only to dream of Nate in completely inappropriate places, doing decadent things. It started her morning off—right up until the point when she saw him working on the shop and could barely meet his eyes.
****
Nate whistled tunelessly as he removed a stack of mail from the odd-shaped box standing in front of his house Friday afternoon. He’d put in a hard day at Decadence, getting things blocked out and set up for the build-out Claudia wanted. He’d tried to catch her eye at the store in the morning, but she looked really busy and he hadn’t pursued it. She had a lot on her mind with Peter here, and he didn’t need her right away. He’d catch her tomorrow. He hoped she and Justin were getting along decently and the boy wasn’t giving her any problems. He’d tried talking to Justin when the kid had walked by him on his way home from school, but as soon as he’d asked what was bothering the little guy, Justin had clammed up. Nate knew he’d wheedle it out of him eventually, maybe at dinner with Claudia next week. Or Claudia would tell him. Either way, he’d told Justin that his phone was always on. He and Justin hadn’t ever talked about Peter, his biological father, but with the guy back in town and Justin’s general moodiness of late, Nate had no doubt it would explode at some point. And he’d be there for him. Just like he was for Claudia, though she, too, had been acting weird lately. Must be all the stress, he thought.
A recent gag gift from his cousin, the mailbox made him laugh every time he saw it. Today was no exception as he took a good look at it and tried to push any concerns to the back of his mind. It was perfect. No one else in his circle of friends had an oversized replica of an Xbox Game System to hold mail.
“Hey there, sonny,” a familiar masculine voice rumbled from behind him, and Nathan jumped. His next-door neighbor, Fred, erupted with his trademark laugh and continued, “I caught you off guard. Sorry about that, my boy.”
Nate turned and beheld Fred in all his glory. There really wasn’t another word for it. And smiled. No one Nate had ever met could compete with the outfits Fred managed to put together. Today it was a pair of green polyester slacks and a flamingo pink polo shirt.
“Well, it’s a fine, beautiful day, isn’t it?” Fred said, and his flash of blinding white teeth was proof positive of the wizardry of dentures.
“Yes, sir, it is,” Nate replied. “And how are you feeling today?”
“Good as gold. Good as gold,” Fred said. “Got myself a new girlfriend down at the club, and we’re stepping out tonight. Me and my Edna.”
Nate stifled a chuckle. Fred Watson didn’t look a day over eighty-five, and he led a more social life than Nate did at the ripe old age of twenty-eight. But Nate had hopes that might change. And soon. There was a girl down at the bank he’d been thinking about asking out. Yeah, he had to remember the girl down at the bank and forget his wacky notions about Claudia flirting with him when she was probably just trying to handle this Peter situation as best she could.
“So, is this one a keeper, Fred?” Nate asked. If he remembered correctly, this was Fred’s sixth girlfriend in the last eight months. Fred Watson, the aging Lothario, was an inspiration.
The dentures flashed again in a wide smile. “Well, now, son,” Fred’s voice dropped, as if he were imparting a secret. “They’re all keepers. Even if it’s only for a short time.” And then he laughed uproariously at his own wit, his many chins jiggling merrily. “By the way, boy, when are you going to get a girl for yourself?” Fred asked as he peered at Nate from under bushy white eyebrows. “Got yourself this big house and don’t have no family to share it with. Seems a shame to let that backyard of yours go to waste with just your flowers and your patio furniture.”
Since Fred brought up Nate’s lack of female companionship every time the two talked, Nate smiled again, devilishly this time, shrugged a shoulder, and gave his standard answer. “That’s why I’m here, Fred. I’m going to find myself a beautiful ski bunny or corn-fed girl and raise a whole passel of kids.”
Hands folded over his round stomach, his neighbor laughed jovially, and his belly shook for long moments. Then Fred rearranged his face into a look of mock severity, his blue eyes still twinkling with mirth. “Gotta decide between one or the other, my boy. Can’t have both, I don’t think. Though times may be different. But see that you start soon, sonny. You’re not getting any younger, you know.” With that bit of sage advice, Fred began walking up the length of his driveway.
The words, coming from someone who was old enough to be his grandfather, really got Nate in the gut. For all he knew, Fred would get married for the third time before he could even manage to walk down the aisle once.
“Have a great time on your date this evening, Fred,” Nate called as he watched the man who had been “advising” him since he was a snot-nosed kid running around with his friends on their skateboards. When this house had gone up for sale, Nate had been skeptical about living next to the old man, but it had turned out to be one of the best decisions of his life. “Keep an eye out for the ski bunnies for me.”
“I always keep an eye out for the ski bunnies,” Fred returned.
Nate saluted as Fred made his way back to his house, calling over his shoulder that he needed to get ready for his red-hot date at 4:30.
Fred was going to be right on time by Nate’s watch. And that also meant Nate had the whole evening stretched out in front of him.
Logan had a date with some girl, and Claudia had never picked up her phone when he tried to call this afternoon about Peter. His few close friends were on a slow-pitch baseball team together, and tonight was practice. He’d been asked to join but had turned them down because he’d wanted to be available if Justin needed him.
Okay, that was a little pathetic. Sure, he loved the little guy, but he didn’t need to be a doormat. This kind of thing had only happened over the last year or so, when Justin had started freaking Claudia out. It was right after they had moved out of Claudia’s mom’s house and into their own apartment with Zoe.
Fortunately, the phone chose that moment to ring. At this point he’d gladly talk to a telemarketer to get his thoughts off the path they were strolling down.
But he didn’t get there in time to answer. That just might have been divine intervention.
Because it wasn’t a telemarketer. It was his mom. “Sweetie,” she said in her harsh smoker’s voice. “Call your mama and your grandma when you get a chance. We have something we want you to do for us. You know how your grandma is, so call right away or the biddy won’t get off my back.” It sounded like she turned away from the phone; her voice got muffled and distant. “Yes, I called you an old biddy. Please don’t tell me you’re going to be ornery in your old age. Christ!” Now back to him. “Yeah, yeah, love from me and the old bat. Oops.” Then she laughed and hung up.
What a family. No wonder he’d never been in any huge hurry to invite anyone into it. Claudia and her whole crew from Zoe to May to Claudia’s parents were there by default since they’d been around forever, but inviting someone new in was always something to think long and hard about. They’d have to deal with his mom and his grandma, who he was pretty sure was Fred’s age, but, since every year her age went down a number or three, he could never be sure.
Stepping over some fallen toy soldiers and a handful of games spread out on the floor, Nate headed for the kitchen. He threw the mail on the table. The whole pile slid along the slick surface but stopped before completely falling off the table, joining others on the table. He wasn’t normally a slob, but with two jobs going on, he was busy. He really needed to clean this place up, and tonight was the perfect time. Though he knew Claudia and Justin were probably at the batting cages, he didn’t want to intrude. Justin seemed to have some stuff on his mind lately, and maybe he would talk to Claudia about it tonight in between swings.
For his part, Nate had no plans for the evening. It was still early, and he was going to be busy again come Monday. Especially since he was probably taking Claudia and Justin out to dinner Monday evening. It would be a welcome fun thing to do after the lunch they had to attend this weekend. He still hadn’t decided whether he wanted to go or not.
Wandering over to the refrigerator, he pulled open the door and checked out what he had. He grabbed a package of filet he’d taken out of the deep freeze in the garage earlier in the week and seasoned it. He’d grill again. No big deal.
Thinking about the upcoming couple of days brought two things to the front of his mind. For one, he hoped Claudia could handle Peter. He knew she could, but he hoped she came out the other side okay. Secondly, as much as it was never a hardship to take Claudia anywhere—she’d been potty trained for years—he did hope her nervous tick would go away before their dinner.
Then again, maybe she finally needed glasses. He’d been telling her for years that holding paper at arm’s length wasn’t the norm. And if she really wanted to enjoy those romance novels she liked to read, she should break down and get glasses. Maybe that was the problem the other night when her eyelashes kept fluttering.
Because the only other explanation he’d been able to come up with over the last few days was that she was trying to flirt with him, and that made about as much sense as using a ballpeen hammer to pound in a stake on a railroad tie. Not to mention they’d been friends forever and, despite a few wet dreams at night when he was younger, he’d put her in a box labeled Not For Sex, Ever.
It was too ridiculous to even contemplate. Wasn’t it?