Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Franky
I woke up to the sound of music and the smell of bacon.
I gave a cat stretch and let my mind stray to last night. It was wonderful—or at least, a wonderful release. Maybe I could do this, occasionally sleep with Jason to scratch an itch. Help us both out.
The image of that cute blonde, the one from the Hot Goss website, popped into my head. So he claimed he’d had “chances” but he hadn’t indulged, whether out of guilt or honor or something else. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. He had kept himself for me.
After a visit to the bathroom, I went downstairs. Jason was dancing to Bruno Mars while waving a spatula. For a few lovely seconds, I watched as he twitched his hips and shook his ass, the very firm and muscular rear I’d had the pleasure of gripping hard last night.
“Hello.”
He whipped around. “Mornin’, Doc. You hungry?”
“I am a bit.” I moved forward and took a seat at the kitchen counter, which gave me the perfect view of the proceedings.
This man cooking and dancing, happy as a clam.
Anxious to avoid falling into his thirst trap, I refocused my attention on the backyard and the swing set surrounded by rust-colored leaves. A different kind of trap.
He handed me a cup of tea before returning to the stove. I took a sip. Earl Grey, perfectly steeped, the right amount of milk.
“You have tea in your cupboard?”
“I’ve got plenty of treats in my cupboard.”
“Seriously, you have the tea I like?”
“Not some strategy to lure you into my bed, Francesca.”
“No?” Because that would have totally worked if I knew about it.
“Nope. I have other ways of doing that. I just figured you might come to visit on occasion to discuss this joint enterprise of ours, and if that miracle ever occurred, I would like to be able to offer you a cup of your favorite hot beverage. It’s not a big deal.”
Oh, but it was. I took a sip to calm my frazzled nerves. That kind of sweetness was not on my bingo card, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it.
“Thank you. That was very thoughtful.”
“Tell that to every girl I’ve ever dated.”
“That was your first mistake. Dating ‘girls.’” I finger quoted “girls” because he definitely liked them younger, which can’t have been conducive to a fulfilling relationship for a man of Jason’s intelligence. I wondered if the women he slept with bored him.
“Just an expression. The women I’ve dated haven’t really appreciated my kind gestures.”
“Such as?”
“Well, one girl—woman—liked frogs. She had frog-this and frog-that in her bedroom, so I got her a special visit to the zoo in Boston to see the frogs up close and talk to a frog expert. A whaddyacallit?”
“Herpetologist.” Though I suspected he knew exactly whaddyacallit.
“Yeah, that. Turned out she only liked cute little images on T-shirts or stuffed toys. She thought the genuine article was slimy and gross, but it wasn’t. That was an interesting date. Me and the herpes guy got on like a house on fire.”
I pursed my lips against a smile. Stop making me fall for you.
“Then there was the time I took a woman to this fancy restaurant in the North End, which is usually Italian, but she liked French food. Said crème brulee was her favorite, so I had a special one made by the chef—who I knew from this regular poker game—with her name burned into it with the blow torch, and she said I was trying to make her fat. Didn’t appreciate it at all. ”
“Can’t win.”
“Right!” He shook his head sadly, though I could see the slightest grin teasing his sensuous mouth. He waved between us. “This, though. This is uncomplicated.”
“Jason, this is the definition of complicated.”
“I mean, from a dating perspective. We’ve kind of put the cart before the horse, figured out the end game—Super Kid—and now we’re working our way back to basics. Mashed potatoes, cups of tea, great sex. Before you know it, you’ll have to acknowledge me in public. And there you go, we’re a couple.”
He grinned, like it was the funniest thing. And while he could see the humor in our unusual situation, I couldn’t.
It was bad enough I’d included him in my life—forever—because he wanted to be involved in his kid’s life. I got that. I loved that. But I couldn’t allow myself to fall for him as a potential partner. That would be disastrous.
Heartbreaking.
That swing set out back would be for his kids, plural, the children he would eventually have with a woman better suited to his big personality. I was too much of a wallflower to attract a buzzing bee like him for longer than a few seconds in the eon of our lives.
“This was a one-off. Don’t rely on me for your sexual gratification.”
He stirred the eggs once more, turned off the stove, covered the buttered toast, and placed it in front of me.
“Even when you’re not around, maybe I’ll think of you. Add you to the rotation.”
I picked up a fork. “What an honor. Though the heavier I get, the further down the list I’ll fall until, plop, I fall off altogether.”
He took a seat beside me, and we instinctively clinked our forks like we were toasting breakfast. I chewed on my eggs, which were delicious. He couldn’t even mess that up.
“Don’t be so quick to self-deselect from the spank bank, Doc.”
“Time and circumstance will do that for me. Luckily, you can let your imagination run riot because you won’t have to see me for most of the pregnancy.”
He frowned. “What does that mean?”
It was not my best moment, but it was time he knew.
“I won’t be in Chicago.”
“Won’t be in Chicago?” Said slowly like the words made no sense.
“I’ll be in Boston for the Winter semester. I have a guest lectureship at Harvard.”
Dr. Bilious had finally signed off on it after making me explain, in writing, how exactly my absence would benefit Lakeshore. My open access funding requests were still under consideration.
His mouth fell open. “But you’re pregnant!”
“Jason,” I said in my calmest, soothe-the-beast voice, though I suspected it would come out a touch patronizing. “This has been planned for some time. There’s no reason why the pregnancy should interfere with that.”
“No reason? How about healthcare?”
“A recent study ranked Boston as having the best medical infrastructure in the world.”
His frown deepened. “What does that have to do with having a baby?”
I took another bite of my eggs. However, I’d lost my appetite in the face of Jason’s expression of betrayal.
“I’m doing my due diligence now and making sure I have an obstetrician I can trust while I’m there. People travel for work all the time.”
“Not the same. You won’t know anyone.” I saw the moment the light bulb went off. “Except Sean.”
“I’m sure I’ll be seeing your brother occasionally, and it’s great to know someone in a strange city. But I also have colleagues in Boston who can advise on all sorts of things. This will be a five-month appointment.”
He was doing the math in his head, his mouth clamped so tight he would need a dentist. “Starting in January? So you’ll be traveling back to Chicago close to the due date?”
“About a month before. People have been pregnant before, you know.”
“But you haven’t been.” After an unsuccessful stab at his fluffy scramble, he pointed an egg-free fork my way. “I don’t like this plot twist. At all.”
I was rather touched, though I suspected it had more to do with one of his sexual gratification options drying up or concern that I wouldn’t look after his precious Super Kid. Well, I was perfectly capable of looking after both of us. This baby business had been my idea in the first place.
He remained quiet for a moment, likely planning his next salvo. I braced myself.
“Doc, if you don’t want to have sex with me, just say so. Leaving the city is kind of drastic.”
“This was planned before I even knew I’d be pregnant—”
“And maybe you should unplan it, because I sure as hell don’t think you should be gallivanting around the country when you’re about to have a baby.”
“Says the man who lives, breathes, and dreams hockey. While gallivanting around the country.”
“Don’t make this a feminist thing. I’m all for you working until the day Super Kid starts getting antsy about making a break for it. I would just rather you were doing this close to home. To your family and the people who care about you.” He pointed. “And being near Sean isn’t the same.”
I was starting to piss him off. Time for the kill shot.
“You’re overreacting.”
A dark flush appeared across his cheeks, his fury peaking. “I am not.”
“My plans aren’t changing. You’re not the travel police and I will be in Boston for the majority of this pregnancy, whether you like it or not.
” I stood, no longer in the mood to mollycoddle him.
“Thank you for breakfast and a lovely evening. I need to get home and make sure Bunsen and Beaker are okay.”
“And who’s going to look after the cats while you’re away?”
“I’ll probably take them with me. Or ask Rosie.”
He stood and folded his arms. “Don’t think of tapping me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Good, because I’m not around enough. I’m too busy gallivanting around the country doing my job.”
I threw up my hands. “Which is so much more important than mine, apparently!”
“Never said it was.”
I walked to the door with him trailing. As I grabbed my coat, he took it from me, perhaps determined to hold it hostage. Instead, he surprised me by holding it out so I could put my arms in it.
This is why I did it. This is why I picked a fight.
All these sappy little gestures were binding me to him like he had shot a love dart into my body.
In the world of gastropods, love darts were calcified barbs speared by some snails into their mates during copulation.
Sounded sweetly primal, didn’t it? Not so much.
Research had shown that darted snails laid fewer eggs and lived for three-fourths of a typical snail life.
Malacologists were curious about this evolutionary quirk: why evolve love darts if the mother of your offspring was harmed?
The current thinking was that it came down to genetic selfishness.
The darts discouraged the mother from mating again.
They actually curtailed her life span! Meanwhile the darter carried on their own lineage, spreading sperm willy-nilly and guaranteeing genetic superiority.
Now here was Jason Isner, shooting his dart. I needed to rip that barb out, return to the me I was before I knew him.
Still holding the back of my coat, he pressed his lips to my ear. I waited for him to speak, but all he did was emit a breathy sigh, as if he had nothing to say. Or nothing that would make me see the sense he thought I was lacking. Sense was the only thing I had going for me right now.
I fumbled with the door and pulled it open, which set the alarm off.
Danger, danger, you’ve been darted by a player!
“I-I’m sorry,” I gasped as he input the code behind me. Then I ran, like the coward I was, the echo of the alarm ringing in my ears.