The Next Best Thing (Gideon's Cove #2)(34)
“Buddies.” He raises an eyebrow. “Okay, buddy. I’m tired and I have an early meeting, so let’s call it a night.”
And with that, he punches in our code, holds the door open for me. When we get in the elevator, he pushes four for my floor, and five for his. Aside from “Good night,” we don’t say anything else.
CHAPTER NINE
“HOW WAS YOUR DATE WITH CHARLEY Spirito the other night?” Parker asks. “Nicky, not so high, honey.”
I watch as Nicky pumps his little legs harder, trying to make the swing wrap around the bar from which the chains dangle. Seems like he inherited Ethan’s thrill-seeker gene.
Corinne, wee Emma, Parker, Nicky and I are at Ellington Park, a safe two hundred yards from the cemetery entrance. It’s one of those perfect September days, the sky so brilliantly blue it makes your heart ache. The yeasty, welcoming smell of Bunny’s morning bread still flavors the air. I have forty-one minutes until the next batch is due out, but for now, I’m on my midday break. Emma smacks contentedly away at Corinne’s breast. My sister wears the serene face of pain that I’m coming to recognize as “nursing mother.” Or “saint dying a martyr’s death.” Same idea.
“You went out with Charley Spirito?” Corinne asks, snapping out of her haze to give me a dubious look. “No sir!”
“Mmm,” I say. “It was…well. Charley. You know.”
“Didn’t he put gum in your hair once?” Corinne asks.
“Wow, good memory,” I comment. “It was fine. I don’t know.”
“Just a whole lot of nothing?” Parker guesses.
“That’s about it,” I agree, tilting my face to the sunshine.
“Which is what you want,” my friend adds. “Nick, no, don’t jump. You’re too high. Good boy. Thanks.” Nicky waves, then jumps. Parker sighs as her son comes running over. “Nick, what would I tell Daddy if you snapped both your little ankles, huh? You want to go to the E.R.?”
“You shouldn’t scare children with the thought of getting health care,” Corinne advises in the singsong voice she uses whenever lecturing those of us who don’t have all of life’s answers. Parker rolls her eyes.
“Can we go to the E.R., Mommy?” Nicky asks. “I love the E.R.”
Parker tries to suppress a grin. “You were hurt when we went there, remember? When they sewed your hand?”
“It was fun,” Nicky insists. “I got a balloon, Wucy.”
“I remember,” I say, reaching out to tap his adorable nose with my index finger.
“Wucy, did you see me jump off the swing?”
“I sure did, honey,” I say, looking into his gorgeous brown eyes. Honestly, the boys always get the lashes, don’t they? “You looked like you were flying, but you know, Mommy’s right. That could hurt, if you landed wrong.”
“I didn’t land wrong. I landed up! Bye!” He canters over to the slide.
“He’s so beautiful,” I say. Jimmy’s nephew. Sad that Nicky is the closest thing to Jimmy’s child I’ll ever have. I think we would’ve made such gorgeous kids. The thought is a reflex by now, the pain worn to a nub with overuse.
“So, back to the date,” Corinne says. “Is Charley a contender?”
I pause. In truth, Charley’s not that bad. Just not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Honestly, he does match a lot of my requirements. Fairly recession-proof job. As a physed teacher, he’s in great shape, which is not only aesthetically pleasing but a huge plus with the Low Risk of Early Death requirement. Charley seems good-hearted, I guess. He obviously likes kids (though being a gym teacher, one could argue that in fact, he hates kids). It’s just that the idea of sex with Charley…
Saturday night, Charley took me to Cuckoo’s Grille in Kingstown. The waitress was the mother of a woman we’d been to school with, so it was a typical Rhode Island two-degrees-of-separation night. When the pleasantries and updates were completed and the order for stuffed clams, or stuffies, as we like to call them, had been placed, Charley and I stared awkwardly at each other across the table. Then he launched into a discussion of the Red Sox, passionately making the case that without Varitek’s “goddamn torn ligament,” there was no way in hell that those “goddamn Yankees” would be in “first goddamn place,” and furthermore, what was wrong with Boston’s new shortstop, the guy was a “goddamn zombie.”
At the word Yankees, I recalled my fond fantasy of Joe Torre as my stepfather. If such were the case, I wouldn’t be on a date with Charley…not when dear old Joe would fix up his beloved stepdaughter with a millionaire baseball player who was single, didn’t do steroids, visit prostitutes, date Madonna, throw his helmet, chew tobacco, spit or scratch his groin in public, if such a creature indeed existed.
When our food came, Charley turned his attention to his steak and didn’t lift his head until his plate was clean. It was this sort of thing that made me think I could probably sleep through sex with Charley without him noticing.
The last time Ethan and I, er, had relations, it was roughly ten minutes after he’d returned from a trip to Montreal, and I’d jumped him the second he walked through my door. We’d done it standing up in the hallway, me against the wall, legs wrapped around him and quite vocal, as I recall. A framed picture fell to the floor, the glass breaking, but we didn’t stop until we, um, stopped.