“I didn’t even know you were trying,” I admitted, feeling bad. If they’d ended up going down the IVF route, something I had no clue about but I knew it wasn’t easy, or cheap, then it wasn’t their first option.
“Yeah, well,” Bryce ran his hand through his messy hair, “we didn’t want to tell anyone in case it didn’t work. The first time…”
“Wait! What? This isn’t the first time?”
“Nah. It’s our third. But you know what?”
“What?”
“It doesn’t even matter anymore. Emma and our babies are healthy, and as long as they stay that way, then everything is all good in my world.”
“Fair call.”
“And speaking of the women in our lives…Claire?” He left his question hanging. I think he was hoping I’d fill in the blanks and give him the details. Idiot.
“Claire is…” Looking over my shoulder, I saw her sitting at the bench, sipping a glass of wine, her head thrown back as she laughed at something Sienna was saying. “Absolutely none of your business,” I finished, pushing off the step and heading inside towards them.
“And what are you ladies laughing at?” I asked, eyeing the three of them warily.
“None of your business,” Emma told me. “How’s dinner coming along?”
“Depends if Bryce cremates it or serves it while it’s still edible.” I shrugged.
“I better go check on him.” Emma huffed, and all I could do was laugh. I guess she’d been served one of Bryce’s dried, charcoaled steaks before.
After dinner I managed to extract Claire from Emma’s clutches and shoo her out the door. Not before they exchanged numbers and promised to be besties for life. Women! I didn’t understand them and I was pretty sure I never would.
I waited until we were in the car and back on the road before I asked, “Okay. On a scale of one to ten, how bad was that?”
“How bad was what?” Claire replied, and I wasn’t sure if she was yanking my chain or not.
“Dinner at my brother’s. Sorry. I had no idea that’s what we were going to be walking into. I mean, the babies, my parents on TV. Hunter. I know it’s a lot.”
“Are you sorry you brought me?”
“Should I be?”
Claire went quiet, and I assumed that meant I’d fucked up. I should’ve known better than to force her to go through that shit, but the truth was I couldn’t get out of it and the last thing I wanted to do was bail on her, so this was the best I could do.
I rolled to a stop at the traffic lights and looked over at her. Fuck she was hot. I don’t know what it was exactly that had me on my knees, but there was something about Claire. Maybe it was because it was just so easy. She wasn’t easy, but being with her was. Maybe it was because of the way we met. She hadn’t been trying to get into my wallet, but instead trying to keep me alive.
“Depends,” she taunted.
“On?”
“I’m pretty sure you promised me dessert.”
This chick was evil. While I stared at her like an idiot, she pointed out the windscreen. “Light’s green.”
Damn it!
Why was it when I wanted to look cool and impress her, I ended up somehow making myself like the world’s biggest chump? Maybe it was just how talented I was.
The song changed on the stereo and next thing I knew, I had front row seats to Claire’s one-woman show. There were dance moves I wasn’t entirely sure should be legal, singing so bad it’d offend dogs, and even some dashboard drumming. Chuckling to myself, I headed for home.
Forty minutes later, I somehow managed to snag a park on the main road along the beach. It was late, and there weren’t many people around, but up on the corner, the front of the building was lined with smokers, getting their nicotine fix while the music from the upstairs club pounded out into the night air.
“Ice cream work for you?” I asked Claire as I killed the ignition.
