Chapter 10
PARKER
When I’d gotten back from lunch, Mason was nowhere to be found.
I tracked down Pia, who was in her office with no idea where her fiancé had gone off to.
When she asked about lunch, I laughed, asking if she’d talked to Delaney yet.
Pia admitted her friend had texted when she was finished, but Pia had been on a work call that had just ended.
I told her to call Delaney immediately and left a bewildered Pia behind.
“Hey, buddy.” I found Beck in the kitchen. “Have you seen Mason?”
“No, why?”
“Pop Tarts? Are you ten?”
Beck pulled the tarts out of the toaster. “These things are damn good. Want one?”
I pulled a water from the fridge. “I’ll pass. Thought you gave them up when you lost your abs?”
“First of all, I didn’t lose my abs. Not all of them, at least.” Beck took a bite.
“And second of all?”
He finished chewing. “Second of all, I never intended to give them up forever.”
Beck loved Pop Tarts almost as much as he loved women.
“Third of all, when you start wearing matching socks, I’ll stop eating Pop Tarts.”
“They match,” I said of my socks. “You just can’t tell.”
Beck didn’t comment. I couldn’t even remember how the crazy socks started, but they became a thing in college. Being known for them was as good a talking point as any, and people—girls in particular—started buying them for me. So of course, I had to wear them.
“Got these in my Easter basket last year,” I said.
“The fact that you get an Easter basket at your age is disturbing.”
“Says the guy eating Pop Tarts for breakfast because he probably just woke up despite the fact that it’s after one in the afternoon.”
“Late night,” he muttered between bites.
“I was with you, dipshit.”
“I can hear the two of you bickering like an old married couple,” Mason said, walking into the kitchen, “halfway down the hall.” He looked at Beck’s choice of breakfast food and rolled his eyes.
“What? Your fiancée got them for me,” Beck argued.
“Of course she did.”
Pia adored Beck, so that made sense. “It’s ironic that she sees through your bullshit but still likes you so much.”
“Fuck off.”
“Speaking of fucking,” I said, eager to tell the guys this one. “I had lunch with Delaney today.”
“You what?” Beck asked.
I filled him in on how that ended up happening. “More importantly, you’ll never believe this one. Even for my father, it’s a doozy.”
Mason leaned back against the kitchen counter, crossed his arms, and waited.
Beck, eyes wide, finished off his Pop Tart.
“So he asked me to stop at the pharmacy last weekend when he was in town, which is where I first met Delaney.”
“Delaaaaney.” Beck said her name in a sing-song voice, like a three-year-old might. The guy was addicted to hearing the sound of his voice.
“I didn’t think to look at the medication, but apparently Dad has been having some difficulty getting it up.” I let that sink in before adding, “So I had no idea she thought the meds were for me this whole time.”
“Oh.” Mason broke into a huge grin. “That’s rich.”
“And she still had lunch with you?” Beck laughed. “Your fucking father is a real winner.”
“When you say ‘fucking father’ do you mean that literally, or…” Mason laughed at his own joke.
“Funny,” I said. “Can you believe the guy?”
“Yes, we can,” Mason said. “What amazes me is how opposite the two of you are.”
“Thankfully, I got most of my mother’s genes.” Though I wasn’t taking any chances, just in case being a major dickhead after the nuptials was also an inherited trait.
“That’s not how it works,” Beck said, wiping crumbs from his breakfast onto the floor, earning a stern look from Mason. “You get half of your genes from each parent.”
“It was a figure of speech,” I pointed out.
“A figure of speech,” Mason said in his best Professor Cole voice, “is a non-literal word or phrase used for rhetorical effect.”
“Is that what it is?” Beck asked in his best smartass voice.
“Does Pia know about this?” Mason asked.
“Speak of the devil,” I said as Pia walked in.
“Know about what?” she asked.
“You didn’t talk to Delaney yet?” I asked.
“I just did.”
“So she didn’t tell you?”
“About lunch?”
“About my father.”
Mason and Beck watched the two of us as if it were a tennis match. Pia shook her head.
When I told Pia what happened, her eyes widened.
“She would never tell me.” Pia stifled a smile. “Delaney takes confidentiality with her patients very seriously.”
“Obviously it doesn’t leave this room.”
“Your dad’s dick is not typically a topic of conversation at the bar,” Beck said. “But if it comes up, I’ll be sure not to mention it to anyone.”
“Are you working tonight?” Pia asked him.
“Is the sky blue?”
“At the moment.” She peeked out the kitchen window, Heritage Hill’s lakeside view one of its best features. At the moment, Pia was apparently noticing the very gray skies typical of late January in the Finger Lakes. “No. It’s not.”
That Mason’s fiancée so easily fit into our group was just one of the many reasons we all liked her so much.
“Delaney is off at six,” Pia said to Mason. “It’s still weird for her to be around on the weekend, so Jules and I were thinking to re-acclimate her to Saturday night in Cedar Falls. Maybe The Grapevine for dinner, Big Easy for a drink and then meet you at O’Malley’s later?”
“Works for me,” he said. Mason looked at me.
“I could go for some wings. Any interest in?—”
“I’m on at seven,” Beck cut in. “Come to O’Malley’s to eat.”
“Your wings are crap.”
“I’ll tell them extra crispy.”
Mason sighed. He didn’t want to eat at O’Malley’s, but Beck was feeling left out. Always the mediator, I said, “We’ll hit Taylor’s for a wing appetizer and come over for dinner.”
“I swear to God,” Mason said. “You have more FOMO than?—”
“If you say a girl, I’m coming after you,” Pia intervened.
“Yeah? Coming after me how?” Mason got to her first, putting Pia in a bearhug which there was no escaping from. The former Army Ranger had skills that all of us, myself included, gave a wide berth around.
“So I guess you’ll be seeing Delaney for the second time in a day,” Pia said after Mason let her go.
“I guess so,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “She made it clear lunch wasn’t a date,” I added. “So don’t get that look.”
“What look?”
“Mmm hmm.”
“Delaney is… how do I put this… in transition.”
“Transition?” Beck chuckled. “You make her sound like a vampire.”
“You’re not watching True Blood again, are you?” Pia asked him.
Beck’s rare silence answered for him.
“To me,” I stepped in before the two of them started a debate on the merits of watching new shows versus re-watching old ones, “it didn’t sound like a transition phase but more a ‘done with dating’ phase.”
Pia rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that the same phase all four of you were supposedly in when you agreed to the pact?”
“Whoa,” Beck said. “We took a bachelor pact. Not a non-dating pact. Big difference.”
“Huge,” Mason added.
“That’s what she said,” I finished, for good measure.
“Anyway.” Pia pretended we hadn’t spoken. “Just think of it like Delaney took the bachelor pact too. She’s totally fine to date but has no interest, at the moment, in a boyfriend.”
I thought back to our conversation. “She specifically said, and I quote, ‘I’m not dating. Maybe ever.’ Which isn’t at all ‘totally fine to date.’”
Pia crossed her arms. “Oh, yeah? Then why, when I asked her what you two talked about, was she not able to remember because she, and I quote, ‘was too busy staring at him to think straight for half the lunch?’”
Mason and Beck made sounds that could land the two of them in a zoo if anyone overheard them. Bunch of animals. Toddler animals. Not that I was judging since I probably would have made a similar sound if we weren’t talking about me.
More importantly, “She said that?”
“My lips are sealed. I’ve already said too much.”
“A bit too late to seal them, Pia.” Mason reached for her again, pulling her into his chest and wrapping his arms around her.
“Well, I’m not saying any more,” she clarified. “Except that… maybe Delaney just needs to realize not all guys are assholes.”
“I can—” Beck started, until all three of us said, “No,” at the exact same time.
“I’m not looking for anything serious either, as you know. But I don’t want to fuck around with your friend.”
“Except literally,” Beck said.
Everyone ignored him.
“Delaney is a big girl and can take care of herself,” Pia said. “Just like you’re a big boy, and I won’t try to pressure you.”
I would have muttered, “Too late,” but that sounded way too much like Beck for my taste. Pia pushed away from Mason, reached up to kiss him on the cheek, and then headed back out of the kitchen.
But not before pausing at the door to add, “Though she did ask me if you’d be there.”
With a wiggle of her fingers, Pia left.
I looked at Mason.
“Nothing I can do. She’s uncontrollable. Nice socks, by the way.”
I looked down, considered whether or not I should wear normal socks tonight and immediately decided not to change my style to impress a woman.
Like the lunch, it wasn’t a date. Both Delaney and I were both just tagging along and would happen to be at the same bar. No big deal.
Then why did a wave of adrenaline rush through me, as if it was a big deal?
As if you don’t already know the answer.