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Surveying Vivi’s, Tad tried to take pleasure in the close to ninety percent capacity, but he couldn’t get there. Not when it was impossible to shuck what Jules had told him from his mind. The message had been as clear as the stemware racked above his head.
Tad didn’t make the grade. Adequate for a fling, but not good enough for something real.
If ever there was a time he wished they had not started as friends, it was now. She knew all his faults and flaws. How he had blown through women without a backward glance and now, that knowledge between them was back to bite his ass with a vengeance.
He had thought he was doing her a favor by telling her about his conquests and making her laugh when she was down, but really he was trying to do himself a solid. Sharing all that stuff put her in the friend zone because no decent woman would want a serious shot with a guy like that. It kept her at arms’ length. Damned them before they even had a chance.
Every Italian insult he could think of wasn’t enough to describe how stupid he was. Nor how lost he felt.
Usually, he’d be bored with a woman and the by-now pedestrian sex, ready to move on to something new and shiny. Boredom didn’t even enter the equation with Jules, not when there was so much more of her to explore. He wished he meant the freckle on her shoulder and the heart-shaped birthmark on her hip. Or the sound she made when his tongue stroked her ear and she got really, really excited. But that was just the sparkly top level. He would need a lifetime to map her body and a hundred more to figure out what made her tick.
His skin prickled with the need to take action. Before he could second-guess that impulse, he shot off a text, handed the reins to Kennedy, and did the five-minute quick step over to O’Casey’s.
Shane saluted him with a long neck beer as he came in. “Pulling me away from my girl this late? Better be good, DeLuca.”
“It’s only 10 p.m., old man.”
Conor wasn’t on tonight but Shannon, his favorite buxom redhead bartender, slid him a Goose Island IPA, a healthy dose of her cleavage, and a dirty wink. They’d had a brief fling about eighteen months back and he might have mentioned some of the spicier details to Jules over baked ziti at Casa DeLuca.
While Tad took a slug of his beer, Shane strummed the bar impatiently. Tad took another long draught. The TV above his head showed the Rebels getting their asses handed to them by the Detroit Motors. He felt their pain.
“Unless you start talking soon, I’m going to have to regale you with tales of how hot the sex is with your very pregnant cousin.”
“I’ve been having a thing with Jules,” Tad said.
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Shane shrugged. “No secrets in this family, man.”
“So Jack knows?” Not that Tad particularly cared, but he’d like to be prepared.
Shane’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “You’re still pretty, so that would be a no.”
Christ, he wanted to tear this Simon St. James fucker a new one. The ridiculous name said it all. Some arrogant, candy-assed Brit with a Big Ben-sized sense of entitlement, not unlike another Limey he knew. What guy dumps the woman who was carrying his child and then calls up out of the blue looking to slot himself into his kid’s life?
Revealing that this douche had been in touch didn’t seem wise. They would deal with that later, but he’d give the bare bones for context.
“She opened up to me today about Evan’s father.”
Shane sat up straighter, his curiosity piqued. Jules’s tight-lipped behavior over the identity of her baby’s daddy had caused a fair amount of speculation.
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”
“Except she’s decided to use it as a representative example of why men can’t be trusted. Or more to the point, Italian guys who have a habit of bedding women and moving on quicker than you can say, ‘Your ass looks great on the way out my front door.’”
“You’ve said that to some chick, haven’t you?”
“Maybe, but that’s not the point.” He wasn’t sure what the point was, actually. Looking at the beer as though it could provide answers, he pondered today’s take home.
He still had his friend in his life.
Could he live with that even if he wanted so much more?
“You two have been skirting each other like snapping alligators for ages now. You finally get together and the minute it gets hard, you throw up your hands and walk? Never took you for a quitter, Tad.”
Quitting was where he excelled. Long ago, he had figured out the prescription for a hassle-free, numbed up life.Take two blondes, a bottle of bourbon, and call me in themorning.He had nothing to offer Jules but the port of his body through what he suspected was going to be a tough time now that her ex had reared his no-goodnik head.
And that would have to be enough for now because she had the right of it. She saw deep into his soul and knew exactly what she’d find there.
A gaping void.
