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Nick cleared his throat. “What if said lunatic hasn’t done any shopping yet and really hasn’t shopped in years so has no clue how to buy gifts?” He cleared his throat again. “Especially for chicks.”
“Chicks, huh? I have a feeling you’re not angsting over buying me a gift.”
“I’ll get you something too, if you come with me and pick it out. Don’t you females like bling?”
“I can buy my own bling, thank you very much. And oh no. Ohhhhh no.” She shook her head hard enough to send her twin ponytails flapping. “Do I look dumb enough to voluntarily go shopping on the worst day of the year with someone as clueless as you?”
“Hey.” He couldn’t keep the affront out of his voice. “I’m not that bad.”
“Oh really? Do you have a list?”
“Of what?”
She gusted out a sigh. “Exactly my point. Clueless and pathetic and dripping all over the floor.” Without sparing a glance at his naked torso, she waved a hand at him and turned back to the bedroom. “Get some clothes on, make a list and I’ll meet you downstairs. You better be ready to get in and out fast.”
“First time a woman’s ever said that to me.”
“Doubt that.” Jazz and Gray’s bedroom door thunked shut.
Nick shook his head and headed into his bedroom. He was generally cool with most of his exes, but he and Jazz had a different vibe. Their thing had lasted a nanosecond, and they’d fallen into friendship pretty damn fast. Not that he hadn’t gotten some speedbumps on his ass during the descent, but being in the same band had helped them move past the awkwards into a semblance of an amicable relationship. Living together with her and Gray and the kid hadn’t hurt either. It was hard to see Gray and Jazz together and argue that they were anything but perfect for each other.
He’d just been an unfortunate detour on their road to connubial bliss, but hey, he’d gotten a couple of great friends out of the deal, so he couldn’t bitch. Much.
He tossed aside the towel and grabbed a pair of jeans and tugged them on sans underwear. A quick dig through his drawers netted a worn gray Oblivion T-shirt from their first tour, the one where they’d opened for Rebel Rage, and he pulled it on. He tugged on a hoodie over it and grabbed his wallet and phone, stopping short by the door. The glass dish on the end table held a bunch of shit—paper clips, spare picks, buttons from who the fuck knows what. Matches. Lint. And one perfect pearl drop earring, discovered under his bed during a reckless attempt to vacuum last week.
His fingers closed around the pearl, and he rolled it into his palm. He should give it back. It wasn’t like he didn’t know whom the earring belonged to. Keeping it would screw up her matched pair, and God knows Lila Shawcross wasn’t a fan of anything disrupting her orderly existence.
Especially him.
But he couldn’t return it. Not when he had so little else that belonged to her. She’d been his for a moment, less than, and he was a greedy fucker. He’d give her a million earrings to make up for this one, but this…thiswas his.
He slipped it in his pocket and headed downstairs to meet Jazz. She was giving instructions to Gray, who’d braced one foot on the handle of the rocking bassinette to keep it moving while he cradled his latest acquisition, an acoustic Gibson, like a girl he wanted to get naked. He also appeared to be ignoring his wife, though he peppered her endless speech with the requisite replies of “yes, honey,” and “no, sweetheart, I won’t set the baby on fire.”
That was probably a little embellishment on Nick’s part, but close enough.
“The kid will be fine. We won’t be gone long. This’ll take like what, twenty minutes?” Nick glanced at his phone. It was barely midday. “Maybe half an hour?”
Jazz stopped talking long enough to shoot him a pitying glance. “It’s Christmas Eve.”
“So?”
“How many people do you have to buy for?”
He started counting them off on his fingers then gave up. “The band, their offspring and significant others, my sister—” He huffed out a breath. “Basically everyone.”
“You forgot Lila.”
Jazz glanced at Gray. “Trust me, he hasn’t forgotten Lila for a second. He’s just trying to play it cool around someone similarly endowed.”
Nick smirked. “He wishes he was similarly endowed.”
“Yet my wife likes me just fine.” Gray grabbed Jazz’s hand and pulled her in for a quick kiss. “Go on, we’re good. You’ll need every minute until closing to help this moron find stuff.”
“She’s just coming along to help with the females of the species. I’ve got the guys down.”
“Oh yeah? What’re you buying Simon?”
“Alcohol,” Nick replied, before remembering Simon wasn’t supposed to be drinking. Ah fuck. “Picture frames? So he can admire all those dopey modeling shots he’s been doing?”
