“Excuse me, I have an errand to run. For my family.”
Before she could respond, I left, feeling vaguely irked and supremely dissatisfied. Not sure what I was looking for from that encounter, but I was damn certain I didn’t get it.
Chapter Nine
Franky
* * *
That went well.
I thought it a fairly innocuous observation, but obviously he didn’t see it that way. I made him feel prickly, and he undoubtedly had a similar effect on me.
It didn’t matter that my ovaries had practically exploded on seeing him hunkered down, talking to Tilly. And then to find out he had made the bracelet for her?
The whole scenario was like adding boiling water to my parched libido. Or perhaps it was the fertility drugs I had started taking to stimulate ovulation. Either way, I was primed to view Jason Isner in a different light.
How odd that it should be this individual who made me feel this way. Any number of the men at this cookout were displaying optimal paternal behaviors, yet I was mysteriously hooked on whatever Jason Isner was selling.
But those were my hormones talking. They didn’t understand the emotional aspect of this. How this man was liable to poke fun at someone like me.
How he had done so already.
Sure, it was years ago when Jason was too young to know better. But I didn’t see a lot of evidence of maturity in the intervening years. Rosie thought I was nuts to hold a grudge, and perhaps I was. I couldn’t help how I felt. The absurdity of my feelings didn’t make them any less valid. (Thanks, Dr. Faison, my therapist until age twenty-three.)
But I had handled our conversation wrong, and I needed to put it right.
He wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room. Theo had yelled, “Buns, dude!” Burger buns, I assumed. There was a pantry in the basement, so I headed down there, and sure enough, the errand boy was bent over a large chest.
And speaking of buns … The position highlighted his ass—his taut, muscular ass—in a way I should not be noticing. Then there were the thick thighs, hairy calves, strong back, trim hips …
A step on the bottom step yielded a creak.
He looked up, his expression shifting to storm clouds on seeing me. “Yeah?”
“Do you … need help?”
“Help? From you?”
I hated apologizing. As a child, I used my intellect to win arguments and manipulate the adults around me. As an adult … I did the same. I rarely felt a need to apologize because I was rarely wrong.
“Icametosaysorry.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry.”
His surprise was quickly replaced by something more akin to glee. Of course. Leverage had come walking in, wearing glasses and an Irish linen button-down.
Message received. I turned away.
“Hold up there, Doc.”
“Would you please not call me that?”
“Why? You’re a doctor of something, aren’t you, at that fancy university?”
“I am. I have a PhD. But when you say it, I know you don’t mean it as an acknowledgment of my intellectual achievements.”
