The smoking section is dully unimpressed because I am without much to flash, but one of the guys applauds and another laughs while the girls, still huddled behind me, cheer even after I pull my shirt down. I’ve gone skinny dipping before, so this isn’t much different. Although that hadn’t been under the harsh fluorescent lighting provided by the street lamp. And we’d all been naked so no one much cared about my tiny tits.
I strut back to my friends because this is the game I started to get Maisie to loosen up and now I’m going to see it through come hell or high water. It’s what maids of honor do. And I’m nothing if not the best damned maid of honor in the history of them.
CHAPTERTWO
Getting this guy to go out is like pulling teeth. I have been at it for ten minutes now, but Hunter is sitting at a desk/table with a bunch of paperwork spread in front of him, a pencil tucked behind each ear and a cup of coffee cooling in front of him. Hell, for all I know, it’s the same cup of coffee he’s had since breakfast.
He’s like that. Focused. Centered. So honed that he could forget to eat or drink or that he’s poured himself a cup even though he’s one yawn away from joining the walking dead. He’s one of those workaholic architects who doesn’t take a break unless it’s forced on him. Or unless the right person is asking.
I, apparently, am not that person. “Come on, man. I had a shitty”--he gives me a look because his kid is here somewhere– “bad day at work. Smashed my hand.” I hold it up like he’s going to be sympathetic enough over a bruise that he’ll immediately put down his pen and come out with me. Maybe honesty would do it. “I need a wingman to help me sort through the rabble and find someone worthy.”Unworthymight not be so bad, either.
“Worthy of what?” The kid–ten or eleven year old Hadley–must have snuck in because kids are pet ninja, and now she’s standing beside me.
Hunter sits back, crosses his arms and watches me squirm like the real friend he is. “Um, worthy of my…” I clear my throat. She doesn’t need to know. “Don’t you have homework?”
She crosses her arms and stares up at me, the least intimidated person who ever walked the earth. I have a look. Tattoos. Grimace. She should be scared.
“It’s Saturday night. I did it all last night.” Clearly, she is not.
“Nerd.”
She laughs. “Right? Nerds get scholarships.” She moves to stand behind her father, and the resemblance is staggering. So much perfect blondeness and white toothness does not belong in one gene pool. “My dream school is UCLA.”
Hunter groans and puts his head down. “Now, do you see why I can’t take a night off?”
“Hadley, tell your old man you have seven years before you graduate highschool. He can take a night off.” I shoot a look down at her. I’m 6’3, she’s about…short. But she’s old enough to take cues, to run with a hint here and there.
She shakes her head. “Can’t do it. He didn’t finish his homework.”
“You got her in Karen-training already?” I cock a brow at Hunter, and he shrugs and smiles. Not using it the bad way. Her grandmother’s name is Karen and she’s a stickler for… everything.
He winks at her and smiles a beam of pride so bright I almost need a pair of shades. “She’s more of a Becky.” That one is all on him.
Thank God, for the fiance. I flash her my best good guy grin as she moves to stand on the other side of Hunter. She’s dark-haired and dark-eyed, the compliment to the Kincaid lack of pigment.
She smiles at me. “How’s it going, Walker?”
“It would be better if Bob the Builder would take a break and enjoy life for a minute.” He shoots me a grimace, but I smile at Molly. If anyone can help me, it’s the woman who moved in with him and cleaned up his house, his attitude, and his life.
Hunter looks up. “Enjoying life does not mean watching you pick up women at the Pit Stop.” He slides his arm around her. “And FYI, Bob the Builder was the construction worker.”
I grin. “Enjoying life does mean picking up women at the Pit Stop.” For me anyway. “Fine, we can make tonight a bros before”--he slants a side-eye and I roll mine–”we can make tonight about getting you out of the house.” When they all laugh like I’m Bob Freaking Hope, I shake my head. They don’t believe me. “I don’t have to pick up a woman.” Although I wouldn’t mind getting laid. Not that I can say that aloud without sounding like pure swine. “Fine. I pinky swear, I will not pick up on or be picked up by a woman at the Pit Stop tonight. You have my word.” And like some desperate for a friend highschool chick, I hold up one solemn pinky. Or maybe I’m solemn as I hold it up. Doesn’t matter. The point is, I’m cementing the promise with a time-honored means of swearing.
“Oh, go on, sweetie. You haven’t been out on a boy’s night in… do you go out?”
She calls himsweetieand something in my gut tugs. I’ve never been the kind of guy who wants to be called sweetie, but damn. They make it look good. And whether or not I hold up my end of the pinkie swear, he’s got a guarantee of getting some action once I bring him home. Lucky bastard.
He laughs and pulls her onto his lap. Me and the kid look at each other. “Bleck.”
I nod to the kitchen. “Ice cream sandwiches in the fridge?” It’s a weakness.
“Yeah. Come on.” The kid takes my hand and leads me around the table where her father is currently mid kiss with her soon to be step-mother.
When we’re in the kitchen, she pushes me toward one of the bar stools at the kitchen island, and she goes to the fridge to retrieve our snacks.
This place has gone through a transformation since Molly moved in. It’s so clean it sparkles. Not that Hunter is messy or that he lives in filth or leaves clutter, but this isMomclean. This is pine scented clean. And decorated. No longer does Hunter live in a bachelor pad with just his kid. Now he has dish towels and coffee mugs hanging from a shelf near the coffee maker which is convenient, I guess, but definitely not Hunter’s idea. He designs the outside of buildings. Not the inside.
She hung curtains, too, over his mini blinds. Black and white checkered curtains to match the black and white checkered tablecloth on the kitchenette table and black and white checkered bow on the welcome sign on the wall. Hunter might’ve thought of the curtain matching the tablecloth, but the bow was the thing that made this place as much hers as his.
