The Hot One(3)

I ached.

As I ran, I broiled. I went from zero to sixty miles per hour of hurt in mere seconds. All I could think was the bastard had found a way to juggle in the end. I couldn’t believe he’d moved on so easily after me. And he didn’t just rebound to another girlfriend. He leveled all the way up to fatherhood.

The worst part? The absolutely, completely, horrifically unfair part? He was still so goddamn handsome, with that chestnut hair I wanted to run my hands through, that square jawline I could have touched all night, those lips made for kissing me everywhere.

In last night’s unbidden appearance in my mind, he sure as hell had. He’d been my first in that department; he was still the best.

At that, and at everything.

Look, any woman who says she doesn’t rate her lovers is a liar. She might not have a whiteboard with a numbered list or a diary with rankings. But we all know who rocked our world and claimed our bodies.

He was the one for me. Top of the list. End of the line.

But no more.

Tonight, I’d kick him out of my head, no matter what it took.

“Look,” I hissed to my girls. “It’s Tyler ‘the Juggler’ Nichols.”

Penny’s amber eyes went round as moons as her mouth fell open. She jerked her head to Tyler. “Holy smokes, he is hot,” she whispered, as she ran with her little Chihuahua trotting beside her.

I could have tripped her for that. But I loved her too much, and her little dog, too.

“He’s not hot,” I muttered, as I breathed hard from our pace.

But Tyler Nichols was indeed a specimen, just like he’d been when we were in college. From the day we met in an advanced poli-sci seminar, the man hooked me, he lined me, he sinkered me. He was my best friend, my boyfriend, my most fearsome competitor, my greatest ally, and my first love.

Then he broke my heart, and a few weeks after that, my ego shattered when he finished me off at a debate tournament.

That was devastating . . . and yet, at the same time, it wasn’t. But before I could linger on the ways my future shifted during the tumultuous end of my senior year of college, the present shifted, too. When Tyler opened his eyes and met mine, the expression in his was priceless. He blinked, then recognition flashed in those dark-brown irises.

He was clearly shocked to see me, and yet, he also seemed excited. Like he was gazing upon his favorite work of art. The way he stared at me almost made me think I was a regular attendee at his private one-man shows.

And if that was the case, the man could eat his heart out.

This time, I was going to have the words. All of them. All the hurt and sadness morphed into something beautiful and wholly necessary—the right words at the right time. “How’s the juggling working out for you now, Tyler?”

As I ran past him, he uttered a strangled string of words. “Great. I kept it up.”

“Evidently,” I said, locking my stare briefly with his pretty little girl.

I looked away, and I thanked the lucky stars that I finally had all I needed to eject him from the driver’s seat of my fantasy life. Even as he called my name, I kept running.

Leaving him far behind, where he belonged.

If I had to go on a Tyler starvation diet, I’d sign up right then. Because no way, no how, was I getting off anymore to a man who’d fathered someone else’s baby.

Good-bye, Tyler Nichols curse.

It ended today.





1





Delaney



* * *



I sink into the wooden chair at the mint-green table at our favorite sidewalk café and turn to my two closest friends—dark-haired Penny and redheaded Nicole. Penny leashes her little dog, Shortcake, to the leg of her chair, while Nicole ties up her Irish setter mix, Ruby.

“I can’t believe he has a kid,” I say, still in shock that Tyler had turned down the procreation path so quickly.

Penny shakes her head, surprise registering in her eyes. “He’s so young to have one, too.”

Nicole laughs as a busboy delivers a pitcher of water and four glasses. We’re regulars, and he knows our drill. Nicole thanks him as he pours. She offers a glass to her dog sprawled at her feet under the table. “Right,” Nicole says, her voice thick with sarcasm, as Ruby laps up the drink with loud slurps. “Because age has so much to do with his ability to deliver sperm to a waiting egg during one of the numerous times he let some loose from his body.”

She’s right, of course, and now I want to know all the details. “I wonder if he met her right after me? The kid looked, what, six? Seven? And we split eight years ago. Do you think it happened right away? After college? Before he went to law school? He barely even waited after he split up with me,” I say, dragging a hand through my ponytail as the questions tumble free in a rush. “I haven’t seen him or talked to him since we split. I didn’t even know he was in Manhattan.”

“And is he married now?” Penny asks. “I’m dying to know, since I saw the way he looked at you.”

I latch on to her words. “How did he look at me?”

She wiggles her eyebrows. “Like he liked your running shorts,” she says, in a salacious little whisper.

“Like he wanted to take them off,” Nicole adds, with a wink.

I wish their comments didn’t stir something inside me. Like my treasonous libido. I remind myself I can’t go there. I hold up both hands as stop signs. “He could be married, like Penny said.”