Chapter Six
"We missedyou at dinner last night."
I glanced up and found Shannon smirking at me from behind a pair of dark sunglasses. Abby's head was tucked into Shannon's shoulder, her chubby fingers tugging on her mother's auburn ponytail. A light breeze ruffled Abby's blonde curls, and she seemed to eye the ocean with interest. She was still working out the mechanics of walking, but swam—extensively supervised—like a dolphin.
"Ma ma ma," she babbled, pointing toward the shore. "Ma ma ma!"
"I know, I know, you want to splash," Shannon said to the baby. "But we have to talk to Uncle Jordan first. We need to hear all about his nocturnal adventures."
Placing my thumb between the pages, I closed the book and nodded toward the ocean, where Will was perched on his board and waiting for the right wave. "I informed your husband that I wouldn't be there."
"He told me," she replied. She inclined her head to peer at the book. "What are you reading? When I saw you out here, I just wanted to know who you were with last night. Now it looks like you've traded in your standard fare of Special Teams memoirs for a bright-eyed and busty virgin. Where have you been and what happened to you, Jordan?"
I gazed at the sand and shrugged. "I met someone."
She pointed to the book. "And she has a required reading list? That's an interesting tactic."
I thought about offering Shannon some casual, half-baked version of the truth where I wasn't counting down the minutes until I could climb those creaky stairs again or contemplating whether I could run my business from Montauk. I wasn'treallythinking about seeing out the summer here, but the notion was percolating away in a corner of my mind. It was the same corner where I considered going paleo or buying a minor league baseball team, and other bullshit like that.
"No, nothing like that," I said. I held up the book. "We're discussing romantic literature this evening."
Shannon nodded in approval as she set Abby down. She produced an assortment of beach toys for the infant, and then sat beside her on the sand. "I like that author. No damsels in distress or ladies waiting around for their princes."
I eyed the cover as I considered this. I'd been busy managing my reactions to the steamier parts of the story, and hadn't noticed the absence of damsels or ladies. "Right," I said, opening up to where I'd left off. "I liked that, too."
Shannon shot me an arched eyebrow that said she knew I was full of shit. "This is fascinating," she murmured.
I succeeded in reading an entire paragraph before taking the bait. "What's fascinating?" I asked.
Gesturing between me and the paperback with a grin, Shannon said, "You. You're fascinating. You roll with this intimidating, bad ass vibe and you act as though you don't care about much of anything, but then you meet this chick, spend the night with her, and join her book club." She motioned toward me with a tiny shovel. "The whole thing is fascinating."
Stretching my legs out in front of me, I leaned back and watched the waves for a moment. "I can't determine whether you've hidden an insult in there," I finally said.
Abby grabbed a shell and waved it at me, gurgling and cooing in delight. I accepted the gift, and searched for one to give her in return. I figured a smooth rock would suffice.
"Not an insult," Shannon said, laughing. "It's just amusing to see a serial monogamist make sense of a one-night stand. You're mentally reshuffling your calendar so you can spend another long weekend here, aren't you?"
My desire was to dispute this claim, but my phone vibrated with a notification from one of my security specialists that the equipment I'd requested was to be delivered by messenger this afternoon. Behind it was a string of texts from my senior liaisons, all confirming that they'd pick up any meetings I wanted to offload late next week.
In other words…yes. This weekend wasn't close to over and I was already angling for another visit with April. At the very least, planning to address the absence of security measures at her apartment.
"Just because I don't fuck around doesn't mean I'm a serial monogamist," I said. "Maybe if I had some time on my hands, I would play the game a little harder."
"No, you wouldn't." Shannon rubbed my forearm. "I've known you for some time, and I know you're not a player. But there's nothing wrong with being a one-woman kind of guy," she said. "It's a little surprising since most single guys seem to think manwhoring is their job, but it's nice. You don't have a long history of shady behavior to apologize away, and hardly any chance of an awkward encounter with former conquests."
I scowled at her, not entirely pleased with her assessment. I had conquests, dammit.
"Don't give me that face," she said, wagging a finger. "You're a good guy, Jordan. Don't resent that fact. It's a pleasant contrast to your otherwise lethal demeanor."
I chuckled at that, and looked down at my texts. There was one from Mom, imploring me to have fun this weekend. There were six exclamation points, one for every orgasm I put on the scoreboard last night. Not that I was sharing that detail.
She might've helped me launch this business and was one of my most trusted allies, but discussingintimate relations—as she preferred to call them—was a hard limit for me. I'd gotten enough of that when I was a kid. My mother had worked the "no sex before marriage" angle hard when I was a teenager. Come to think of it, I could even recall a few lectures as early as fifth grade. She'd never come out and announced that I wasn't to become a teen parent like her, but the subtext was damn clear. There were lectures about diseases and contraception and the remarkable power of sperm to survive for days—days!—as it searched for an egg to fertilize.
Abby thrust another shell at me, carrying on in her animated baby talk and forcing me to engage. "Oh really?" I asked, taking the shell. She reached for the arm of my chair and pulled herself up on wobbly legs. "That is amazing. Tell me more."
"Look at you," Shannon murmured. "Nice guy. Good with babies. It's almost like you're not intimidating as fuck."
I swung a glance at Shannon over the baby's head, giving her my bestdon't test me or I'll stab you in the throatface. I didn't mean any of it, and she knew that. My partner's wife was one of my favorite people in the world. She wasn't the sister I'd never had; I didn't think sisters routinely ordered others to suck their dicks. She was a prettier, snarkier version of Will, and one who possessed a bit of insight into my inner workings even when they weren't immediately obvious to me.
"I'll be getting my relationship advice from her," I said, settling Abby on my lap. "She'll take it from here, thank you."
Shannon laughed, completely undeterred. "Just tell me this: are you thinking about extending your stay, or coming back next weekend?"
"I have to be in Texas in a few days," I said. It was meant to call a timeout on this conversation. Unfortunately for my penis and overall happiness, I couldn't stay past Tuesday, not with the mushroom cloud of issues on my desk. It didn't matter whether I wanted to spend every weekend or every minute in Montauk. I wasn't going to get what I wanted, regardless of my serial monogamist status.
Abby yanked off my sunglasses, howling with laughter as she did it. Yeah, a cherub-faced infant besting me summed it all up.
