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He clenched his jaw and his nostrils flared, and I pointed at his face.
“Excuse me, what is this all about?”
He sucked a breath in through his nose and tossed the peanuts in his hand into an empty bowl. “Nothing.”
I rolled my lips, puzzled by his reaction. “Come on, Kidd. You know the way people talk. It was either you’re my non-exclusive boyfriend, or you’re cheating on me. No, correction. We’re cheating on each other.” I elbowed him in the ribs as if his irritation was a joke, but his eyes were hot enough to burn through leather. “It’s not that big a deal. Mama was thrilled I was even in the realm of commitment. She’s convinced it’s just a matter of time before we take things to the next level, and she never passes up an opportunity to ask me if we’ve decided toget serious.”
“Next time she asks, tell her yes.”
My stomach flipped at the way he said it like this was his decision to make. Bossy looked very good on him, and I bit back the impulse to call himDaddyagain. “Why are you being so weird about this?”
“I’m not being weird.”
He was. Will was the most even-tempered, easy-going guy I knew, and aggression was out of character. Hot enough to make me want to run my nails down his back, but that wasn’t the point.
I came to a stop and planted my hands on my hips. “What is—”
Will took one of my hands and tugged me forward. “Come on. Food’s ready.”
21
Will
I grabbed Abbie’s handand twined my fingers through hers, leading her to the table like a boyfriend would. Not a freaking fuckboy.
I wasn’t the kind to snap, and I didn’t get mad often, but I had a tight leash on my irritation right then. She hadn’t meant to do it, but Abbie had hit too many sore spots today, starting with our conversation in the car.
She insisted that there was an uncrossable line between us, an invisible boundary that made it possible for us to be in each other’s lives, and that line was sex. Sex would be the end of us because I wasn’t the kind of guy who’d sleep with a girl and stick around, was I? I wasn’t the man girls went to for a long time. I was the guy they called for a good time, including Abbie, apparently. Mr Phone-A-Fuck. Not much more than a mouth or a hand or a cock to relieve her pressure.
I wasn’t sure what I thought would change after the scene in my bathroom but pretending that it never happened wasn’t on the list.
AndthenI find out that Abbie had let her family believe I was just one of a bunch of guys she was sleeping with. Her parents thought I was the kind of man who would let the woman he loved sleep with other people—that I was the kind of man who would tell Abbie I loved her and then fuck someone else!
And the joke was on me because nobody had trouble believing it.
I could be man enough and admit that part of my problem was the blow to my ego. There were people out there who probably laughed and said I wasn’t man enough for Abigail Ellison. But more than that, I was mad at myself for being such an idiot and not thinking things through when I agreed to this stupid pretend-boyfriend plan.
The pact was Abbie’s idea. She pitched it as a way for us to stay single in practice but committed on paper. It’d make her parents happy, she said, and who better to grow old with than a best friend who encouraged you to go out, have fun, and forget about the consequences? It sounded harmless at the time, and it wasn’t such a stretch to imagine us doing what we’d always done for the rest of our lives.
How many times had Abbie knocked on my door late at night because the loft was more a convenient place to crash after she’d hooked up with someone at the bar? I’d been taking off her shoes and tucking her into bed for years. We’d shared sore heads and stories about the night before over morning coffee dozens of times.
Did I hate that she was screwing a list of losers when I knew she deserved better? Fuck, yes. But I’d been there when that arsehole in high school told everyone that Abbie was easy and watched her pick herself up and own her story. And she kept onowning it long after everyone forgot about why it was important for her to be a cheerleader for sexual liberation. I respected the hell out of Abbie and supported her sex positivity, and given the kind of life I’d been living, who was I to judge?
I was a lover, not a fighter, so why did the idea of Abbie as something other than mine and mine alone suddenly make me want to punch something?
As we approached the long table set out on the lawn for lunch, I smoothed the annoyance from my expression. We found two chairs beside Nancy, who had Seb on her lap. She looked so happy, pressing her cheek against his soft curls, and Seb appeared so content that I had no intention of taking him from her. But when my son set eyes on me, he immediately stretched out his fat little arms, and something like sunlight exploded in my chest.
Seb recognised me, and he wanted to be in my arms more than anyone else’s. Someone needed to make a greeting card for this moment because I could never put into words how fucking fantastic it felt.
In my peripheral vision, I noticed Abbie watching my reaction. I lifted Seb from Nancy’s lap as though my boy always reached for me when I got close, but it was hard work to stop the smile, so I kissed the top of his head to hide my mouth before pulling out Abbie’s chair, then taking the seat next to her, Seb settled into the crook of my arm.
Abbie’s cheeks looked close to bursting with joy, and she was so beautiful I had to remind myself I was annoyed with her.
Across the table, one of Abbie’s uncles helped himself to a spoonful of potato salad as his eyes bounced between Abbie and me. “So, Nancy tells us you two finally moved in together.”
“Oh, well,” Abbie replied, “Uncle Darren, that’s not exactly—”
“That’s right,” I interrupted, picking up Abbie’s hand again and setting our interlocked fingers on the table where everyone could see. “We did.”
