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He squeezed her tight and she laughed as she tried to blink away the tears.
It was a joke amongst the three of them. They’d been at a bar together when some NYU dolt had used the line on her. Phillip and Colin had gaped at the trite pickup attempt. Then Colin had shooed away the student with a dismissive wave of his hand and a sharp tsking sound that had probably left College Joe rethinking his level of cleverness and originality.
Colin did the European double-cheek air-kiss thing with Bayli, then said, “This is excellent timing on your part, young lady.” Colin was only a year older than her. “You can entertain Phillip while I finish the Kiev and put it in the oven. Otherwise, he’ll stand over my shoulder and question whether I have the right temperature and the right timer setting.”
“Careful,” Phillip drolly warned, “or I’ll make sure Bayli and I both stand over your shoulder and question whether you have the right temperature and the right timer setting.”
“Oh, pshaw.” Colin did his trademark hand wave. “I know perfectly well what I’m doing in the kitchen, so stay the hell out.”
“Gladly. I’ll just be sure to keep the fire extinguisher easily accessible.”
“We never replaced it after the last fire.”
> Bayli nearly spewed her sip of wine. “The last—”
“Oh, we most certainly did,” Phillip assured him. “But then you left a candle burning in the guest bathroom too close to a hanging hand towel.”
“Oh, right.” Colin sighed. “That.”
“What’s the deal, Colin?” Bayli tentatively asked, jesting without being snarky.
He shrugged a delicate shoulder. “I like flames?”
“They are pretty,” she conceded. Then finally snickered, her consternation over yet another Rory St. James debacle ebbing now that she was in the joyful presence of these two men.
Colin mockingly grumbled, “Anyhoo, back to the kitchen I go.”
“Hey, wait,” she said as she caught his arm with her free hand. “I’m not staying. I should have called earlier, but I got sidetracked.”
By a really, really hot chef and even hotter sex.
You had to go there?
No, she did not need the memory taking up permanent residence in her brain. But it was likely inevitable.
“What do you mean you’re not staying?” Phillip asked. “I very efficiently talked you into coming to dinner when we were at the library this afternoon.”
“Yes, you did. But then something else came up and, well … I need a little breather at the moment. I did something incredibly stupid from the time I left the library until now.” And that incredibly stupid thing wasn’t begging Rory to fuck her. It was everything that had happened after the ass reference.
“Come sit down,” Colin instructed as he led her to a sofa in their fabulously adult loft. Everyone she knew had a fabulously adult loft or apartment. And they all had a mortgage and a cleaning service. Didn’t even need an exterminator, she surmised.
All except for Bayli.
With a shake of her head so she didn’t get mired in that mental drudgery, she told the guys, “I’m not inviting you to my pity party. Suffice it to say that this past week I have repeatedly been slapped in the face by the glaring reality that I am just now getting started in life while everyone else my age is already immersed in theirs. It makes me feel foolish—and apparently, it makes me act foolishly.”
“Bay.” Phillip directed her to sit, despite her words. “Love, we know about your past and your mother. Since you were a kid you were caring for someone else. When, exactly, were you supposed to start this life of yours?”
This choked her up, but she tried to keep herself in check.
“You had two good years,” Colin chimed in as he sat on the other side of her. “Your freshman and sophomore terms at San Francisco State. Smart enough to get scholarships and you also worked.”
“And shared an apartment with two dear friends who refused to let me pay my full share of rent and utilities,” she pointed out. “I had plenty of help along the way.”
“But you also had to give up college when your mother’s health took another bad turn.”
“I couldn’t afford twenty-four-seven live-in care for her,” Bayli agreed. “I had to be that live-in care.”
“So there you go.…” This from Phillip in his matter-of-fact tone. “You made every attempt when you had the chance to better your situation, to ‘start your life.’ Unfortunately, there were dire circumstances keeping you from progressing further.”
