Games of the Heart (The 'Burg #4)(55)

“Can you guys have your conversation when I’m not freaking out about meeting the two teenage kids of my on-again, off-again boyfriend? This being his title even though I’ve been with him in person for approximately thirty-two hours and who, incidentally, has not once introduced one of his women to his kids.”

Jerra’s attention came back to me and I knew this when she asked sharply, “You’re freaking out?”

“Uh…yeah,” I answered.

“You never freak out.”

“Honey, hello? I’ve been in love with this guy since I was twelve. And he’s never introduced his kids to any of his women,” I stressed. “And I think I told you how hot he is.”

“Yeah, in detail,” she agreed.

“Ergo, he’s had a lot of women.”

“Wow, that’s kinda big,” she muttered, I fell back on the bed in exasperation and she went on, “Right, just at least tell me he had a good excuse for being a huge jackass.”

“I can’t seeing as he didn’t have a good excuse, he had a bunch of them. I can’t even enumerate them. What I can say is that for a hot guy, he not only has awesome command of his hot parts, he also has awesome command of the English language. He used it and it worked on me. Mainly because he meant every word.”

“He’d have to,” she kept muttering.

Right, I had to give her something.

So I did.

“He told me every sign he was getting from me was that I was his dream.”

Jerra perked up. “Oo, that’s good. What else?”

My eyes went to the digital display of the alarm clock Rhonda had next to the bed in the guest room and my heart spiked as I shot to sitting on the bed. “Jerra! I can’t! He’s going to be here in five minutes and I have only one boot on.”

“Oh, he’ll be late. They always are.”

“Mike won’t.”

“He will. They always are. The hotter, the later. Hunter was always at least half an hour late for every date. No other man would I put up with that but because Hunter was pretty and Little Hunter was big and pretty and Big Hunter knows how to use him, I put up with it.”

I didn’t need for Jerra to start waxing poetic about “Little Hunter”. I knew all about “Little Hunter” and Big Hunter’s Olympic-class skills using “him”. If she started, she could go on for hours. I knew this because she’d done it. Often.

Instead, I skirted that topic and informed her, “He was never late for a date with Debbie.”

And I knew this because, back in the day, I paid close attention.

“Euw, that’s just weird,” Jerra mumbled.

“It was twenty-five years ago.”

“No, I mean that he’d date Debbie.”

I was with her on that one.

“Back then, she didn’t dress like a scary lesbian and have one of those blue tooth thingie-ma-bobbies surgically attached to her ear,” I explained. I knew Jerra knew what I was talking about since Debbie had been down to my house in Texas (once), Jerra met her and it didn’t go well. Not the visit and not Debbie’s meeting with Jerra. Then again, this was Debbie. She’d rub the Pope the wrong way even if he was in a great mood. “She was actually really pretty.”

“Beauty comes from within, sister,” she reminded me.

She was right about that too.

“Right, then he was a teenage boy, she was really pretty and she put out,” I told her.

“That explains it,” she murmured.

“Can I go now?” I asked.

“Only if you promise a first thing in the morning phone call explaining the reconciliation and details about the meet the kids dinner.”

“Done,” I agreed.

She said nothing.

“Jerra, I have to go.”

“Are you sure about this, baby?” she whispered and I pulled in a soft breath.

Then I let it go.

Then I said softly, “He’s been unhappy for eighteen years, a bad marriage, babe. Really bad. And last night he told me I’d made him happy for the first time in those years. Truly happy without it being f**ked up. He had issues. He took those out on me. He regrets it. And he apologized and explained them. So, yes, I’m sure about this.”

“Okay,” she said softly back.

“Now can I go?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she answered.

“Love you, honey,” I whispered.

“Love you too and miss you already.”

“I miss you too, Jerra, babe. Later.”

“Yeah, later.”

I touched the screen and sighed.

Then I bent and pulled on my other boot.

Mike, having been married to a designer label whore of the worst variety, knew to phone me to give me the all important information that tonight was casual. We were going to The Station. Not the police one, the semi-nice restaurant that had popped up in one of the semi-nice shopping areas that popped up at the north end of town in the years after I’d been gone from The ‘Burg. I’d been there once before. The food was excellent. The dress code was jeans.

So I had on a pair that were in the middle of my Jeans Fade Spectrum, a spectrum that was wide considering I owned a lot of jeans. Not nearly white with lots of fraying bits. Not dark either.