Play Dates. Maggie Wells
an apologetic smile. “It’s Colombian. Authentic Colombian,” he added, desperate to make the cramped restaurant seem somewhat more hip and cool.
“Oh.” Color rose in her cheeks as she turned her attention to the selections again. “I assumed…You said like Mexican…I’ll shut up.”
Colm chuckled, charmed by her strange mix of brash and bashful. “Well, like Mexican in some ways, but a little different.”
“Was Aiden’s mother Hispanic?”
He should have expected the question. Not a difficult conclusion, given his son’s coloring, and absolutely correct. “Yes.” But he didn’t want to talk about her. Or Aiden. Or anything remotely relating to Princess Clarissa and her cartoon cohorts. Leaning in close, he held her gaze. “I’d like to make a couple of rules for the evening, if you’re game.”
“I think I might be game.” She gave him a coy half-smile. “What kind of rules did you have in mind?”
He watched in rapt fascination as she ran her finger around the rim of her glass. “No kid talk,” he blurted. Colm grimaced when he saw her flinch the slightest bit. “I mean, they’re great, and Aiden is the most important person in the world to me, as I’m sure Emma is for you,” he continued in a rush. “But you have no idea how long it’s been since I’ve had an adult night out. And I have to admit, even longer since I’ve had one with a woman.” He cringed a little when her eyebrows shot upward. “I mean, like I said at the park, a date. With a woman. Not a guy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” He added the line with a nervous chuckle, and at last she cracked.
Her laugh rang out, clear and unchecked. The sound held the barest hint of rasp, but every hair on his arms rose in response. “Okay. I’m with you. No kid talk.”
Relieved, he set his menu aside and reached for the IPA Especial he’d ordered. The beer was cold and crisp but did little to quench the thirst building inside of him.
“Listen, I don’t want to…Like I said, it’s been a long time. And I know I said I don’t want to talk about the kids—and I don’t—but I feel like I should be straight with you.”
Monica lowered her menu but raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Be straight.”
He winced at the implication but didn’t take the bait. “I don’t know how…involved I can get. I don’t have time to catch up on laundry, much less dating, and I’d hate—”
She held up one hand to stop him. “Colm.”
“Yes?”
“It’s fine. Let’s just…see how things go.”
He exhaled loudly and turned loose a relieved smile. “Sounds good.”
Returning her attention to the menu, she murmured, “As long as you are straight.”
“Oh, I am,” he assured her.
Wrapping his hand around the beer bottle, he gave her time to peruse the choices at her leisure as the familiar scents and sounds enfolded him like a warm blanket. Up until he finally gave the go-ahead on the overnights with his parents, he and Aiden had come here every Saturday night.
For the first three years of Aiden’s life, Pablo and Carita had been the only family he and his son had. His own parents lived a mere thirty miles away, but disapproved of his marriage. His late wife shared no blood connection with the couple, but family ties hadn’t mattered. They were the ones who’d been there for him through thick and thin. Bad and worse. Secrets and lies.
Monica placed her menu on top of his and reached for her sangria. “I think I’ll let you order for me.”
A rush of pure masculine pleasure pulsed through him. Leaning forward, he tapped his fingertips against the menus. “Any restrictions?”
“None whatsoever,” she answered, her gaze unwavering.
Heat exploded inside him. He was on fire. Like the time Carmen teased him into biting into a habanero, but this time every inch of him burned. Particularly the inches that hadn’t had the attention of a good woman in way too long. “Here we are, us grown-ups, trying our best not to humiliate ourselves.” He drew his finger through the condensation on his beer bottle. “I doubt I’ll pull it off.”
“The evening is young,” she intoned gravely, cracking herself up.
He tried not to gape like a schoolboy at the way her high, small breasts made the slinky top she wore shimmer. The bright blue color made him picture waves of water cascading over her. He could see the scene so clearly, droplets sliding down her throat and pooling at the hollow in the center. His mouth on her. Licking, sipping, tasting each tantalizing stretch of skin. His hands on her long, lithe body. Her hands on the tile walls of his shower stall. A fast-running current of water rushing along the curve of her spine. His fingers gripping her hips. Lifting. Tilting. Sinking—
“Well, if I had any doubts you were straight, you’ve certainly put them to rest.”
The erection he’d been trying to hold at bay went from half-mast to battering ram in the blink of an eye. He jerked his head up. Frank blue eyes bore into him. He pushed the sleeves of his sweater up a little, hoping to release some of the heat building inside him, but there was no escaping. He knew she could read his every thought. And the smile curving her lips told him she liked what she saw. Thank Christ.
“I’m sorry.” The words came automatically, even if the shame he expected to accompany them didn’t. Parenthood made a guy a master of insincere apology.
“Part of me wants to demand you to tell me exactly what you were thinking, but the look on your face says your thoughts aren’t fit for public consumption.”
Every muscle in his body tensed. The tips of his ears felt like someone was taking a blowtorch to them. He reached for his beer, knowing the glass couldn’t hold the fluid ounces he’d need to rehydrate his parched mouth. He gulped down a few anyway. He’d need juice to ask the questions pulsing through him. “And the other part?”
This time, Monica leaned in close, offering him a couple extra millimeters of skin. As if he needed incentive. “The other part wants you to show and tell.”
“Oh, holy hell,” he whispered. She gave him a smug smile. The struck stupid had to be showing on his face, but he was too far gone to care. “How hungry are you?”
“For food?” she countered.
Colm was waving to get the waitress’s attention when the kitchen door burst open and Pablo charged out. The older man was short and almost as round as he was tall. His ever-present white apron was so stained and splattered with sauces they could have stretched the coated cotton over a frame and hung the apron in any modern art museum. The edges of his mustache drooped even as he beamed at them. He approached the table with his arms spread wide, and as Colm rose to his feet, he knew any chance he had at escape was gone.
“Co-lum, Co-lum,” Pablo crowed as he wrapped him up in a bear hug, oblivious to the food spatters he was transferring to Colm’s clothes. “Too long. Carita is so angry you’ve stayed away, she won’t even come kiss you,” he announced, waving the wooden spoon clutched in his hand. The exuberant man proceeded to plant a smacking kiss on each of Colm’s cheeks.
The warmth and welcome he saw in his old friend’s eyes trumped the urge to wipe the kisses away. Aiden could get away with refusing the show of affection, no problem, but Colm valued Pablo’s friendship too much to risk insulting the man. “Pablo, this is my, uh, friend, Monica Rayburn.”
Like a laser-guided missile, Pablo homed in on his date. “Mees Mon-i-ca.”
Colm snorted at the man’s exaggerated accent, but kept an eagle eye on the old goat. If the stories he told were only half-true, Pablo had cut quite a swath in his day.
“I ham so honored.”
“You are a ham,” Colm murmured.
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