My phone rang. The caller ID said it was Will. He hadn’t been on the wedding-attendant text chain, but he was close to all the groomsmen. He would have been one himself if his wife weren’t about to pop out their second kid any minute. If a groomsman had to ditch the wedding last minute because his wife went into labor, Rex’s mom would never forgive the man or her son or anyone else associated with the massive spectacle she was planning for her second born.
Odds were, my brother knew about all the ribbing I’d taken that day, and he was definitely not calling to take my side. Such was the nature of brotherly love.
I answered the phone. “Go to hell.”
“Hi, Gage,” my sister-in-law said. “Rough day?”
I rubbed my hand over my face. I’d just cussed at a pregnant woman, who also happened to be one of my favorite people in the world. Of course, Will was another of my favorites, but he wasn’t pregnant.
“Sorry, I saw Will’s number.”
“Yeah. My phone’s in another room. I have a toddler hanging off my back and an alien crushing my organs. This was just easier.”
I smiled. Despite the exasperation in her voice, Stacia thrived on the chaos. She made keeping up her busy law practice schedule while corralling her growing family look easy. “What do you need, Stace?”
In the background, Will said, “Is that my brother?”
“Yes,” Stacia answered.
“Tell him to ditch his stupid rules and have some fun with his sexy neighbor.”
The fun I wanted to have, which I’d stupidly confided to Will after our soccer match, was having a no-strings-attached fling. The rule he wanted me to ignore was not banging someone in my building. That was almost as bad as dipping your wick in the company ink, another hard and fast rule I’d never broken and never would.
“He says go to hell,” Stacia relayed my earlier message.
“Not in front of you-know-who.” Will’s voice drew closer as he chatted with Max, so I assumed they’d done the kid handoff.
“Yeah, I probably should have cleaned that up,” Stacie said. “Anyway, Gage, now that both my toddlers are out of the room, we can talk like adults. Remember when you said I could store Max’s big Christmas gift at your place?”
“The indoor jungle gym? Yes. Bring it over any time. Or do you need me to pick it up?”
“No. It’ll be ready later this week. I’ll swing by the store and have them load it into my car. I’ll just need your manliness on your end to unload it.”
“No problem.”
“Tell him,” Will called from a distance, “to use some of that manliness to go find his neighbor and get la—”
“William Halifax, you are holding your toddler,” Stacia said, cutting him off. “Your toddler who likes to repeateverything. That one would be fun to explain to your mother over Christmas.” She sighed and spoke to me again. “Sorry about that.”
I grinned. “He’s not your fault. He’s been like that all thirty-three years I’ve known him.”
“He’s not wrong, though,” Stacia said.
“Et tu, Stacia?”
“I mean, it’s none of my business about you getting laid,” she said quietly. “But it wouldn’t hurt you to have some fun, maybe with your new neighbor. And before you say it, as an attorney specializing in labor law, it is not the same as sleeping with a coworker. But if you’re really averse to a building romance, I do have a friend with a little crush on you.”
Trying to have a no-strings-attached fling with someone crushing on me sounded like a recipe for disaster. “We’ve discussed the downsides of my sister-in-law setting me up.”
“And you’ve said no, and I respect that. But maybe just for the wedding? That could be fun.”
Yeah, no pressure in taking a woman with a crush to a wedding. I loved my sister-in-law dearly, but sometimes she really didn’t get guy-speak.
In the background, Max squealed, and then there was a boom.
Stacia sighed again. “I have to get back to my three-ring circus. But seriously, Gage, my offer to set you up only lasts another forty-eight hours. It would be rude to wait any longer to ask someone on a date for a wedding that’s the weekend before Christmas.”
I wasn’t going to win an argument with a woman who made her living arguing, so I thanked her and wished her good luck with her circus. “Kiss my nephew for me, and give my brother anothergo to hellfrom me.”
