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“You can drive whatever you want. Do we have a date?”
“Hell, yes.” Then she tilted her head, the streetlamps highlighting her pained expression. “But do wehaveto eat at the fancy boat dinner cruise? I’ve got a better idea. There’s this place I’ve been craving—my dad took me once when we were in Rochester on a delivery.”
“Sure.” He pushed away the feeling he’d somehow missed the mark on the grand gesture his brothers insisted was necessary. “We can go wherever you want. Where would you like to go?”
“I want to get a Garbage Plate at Nick Tahou’s.” She speared him with a look when he laughed. “What? It’s the best greasy spoon in the area, and they’re known for their Garbage Plate special.”
“I plan a romantic dinner cruise with a big-deal chef and you’re just as happy to get a Garbo at Tahou’s.” He was trying to play it off as if he were disappointed, but the huge grin on his face was probably a dead giveaway of his true feelings. He felt vindicated; he’d been right after all when he’d told his brothers Bryce wasn’t going to be into a showy display of intentions. “You’re on. Meet me at my garage after you drop off the girls, and we’ll head out.”
He’d pulled her into his arms for a kiss when the door slammed open and Cecily stuck her head out.
“Aunt Beamer? Addison was jumping on her bed tryin’ to fly, and she barfed all over.”
“Ugh. This happens every time I send them with their grandparents. They eat junk like starving wolverines, then puke all night long.” Bryce groaned, giving him the briefest peck on the lips. “Coitus interruptus strikes again. But tomorrow…the girls are gone all day long. Just saying. Gotta bolt.”
And then she was gone.
Ryker flipped up his truck’s tailgate to secure the pirate ship and slid into the driver’s seat. His leg had begun to throb about an hour ago, and he was overdue on taking the ibuprofen, but all that could wait.
Snagging his phone, he Googled “coitus interruptus” and read the definition.
And then he grinned the whole way home.
***
Saturday morning, Bryce met him at the garage after dropping the girls off at the Paynes’. She wore a pair of black jeans and a watermelon-red shirt that hugged her chest and scooped tantalizingly low in the front.
After climbing up into the cab of his truck, she leaned over to give him a kiss on the lips so full of promise he had to resist the urge to drag her onto his lap right there in the parking lot.
“For the first time in forever, I am a free woman for an entire twenty-four hours. I’m giddy with the possibilities.” She buckled herself into the passenger seat. “I had a light breakfast to save room for Tahou’s after we deliver the Cougar. Did you eat yet?”
Ryker held up his Tervis. “Protein shake. Breakfast of champions.”
Bryce made a face as she blipped the key fob to lock her BMW, where it sat outside of his garage. She arched her neck to sniff at his Tervis. “You’re always drinking one of those. They must be good, huh?”
He shrugged, starting the truck, his eyes automatically going to the rearview to gaze at the trailer behind him. The Cougar was already loaded up, but he intended to make good on his promise to have her drive the baby off when they got to the man’s house.
“I don’t mind them.”
He backed out of the driveway as she snagged the drink from his hands.
“Let me taste.”
She took a big gulp, then her eyes bulged. She pivoted in the seat, threw her shoulder against the door and leaned out of his truck, only the seat belt holding her inside as she spewed the mouthful of greenish liquid onto the pavement of State Street.
“Are you trying to poison me? Or yourself? What in the hell is in there?”
“Kale, protein powder, egg whites, and blueberries for sweetness.” He laughed, taking a big swig as she gagged, rifling through her purse until finding a stick of gum.
Popping it into her mouth, she shook her head. “Uh-uh. No way. That’s swill. Throw it out, and swing by Modern Diner before we hit the highway. Don’t you know how to eat healthy and have it not taste like dirty sink water?”
He did as told, and as soon as they pulled up to the tiny diner, Bryce swung out of the truck and told him to wait as she went in to order. She came back with one small Styrofoam container.
“Here. Egg whites, Canadian bacon, and a slice of lightly grilled tomato on an English muffin. Comes in around three hundred calories and is healthy and will keep you full without chemicals and whatever other crap is in your shake.” She popped open the container for him, and the scent of the breakfast made his stomach rumble in anticipation. “You don’t have to drink your meal to be healthy.”
This morphed into a conversation where he lamely put up an argument of the benefits of blending your foods as a meal replacement, while she hotly argued if God had intended you to drink every meal, He’d never have given you teeth.
The mention of teeth had triggered a whole talk about her fear of dentists and the bad experience she’d had as a teen getting her wisdom teeth pulled—and how she hadn’t been able to blink for two hours and had to use her hand to force her eyelids together so her eyes didn’t dry out. This talk of medical procedures had prompted her to ask about his surgeries, and while it had been like starting an old, wheezy engine, once he got going on the topic, he found it amazingly easy to talk about the first trauma surgery in nearby Kabul, where they’d attempted to re-rig his foot back onto his leg but it had ultimately failed. The second surgery in the States was at Walter Reed when they’d originally amputated, and the third surgery was about eight months later to remove a bone spur forming on his femur. That was when he’d discovered he was one of those few people prone to HO.
