her eyes and lifted her cup into the air, and I followed suit, ready for whatever ridiculous toast she’d no doubt been preparing all night. “To never getting married.” Her glass tipped forward.
Mine sloshed all over the table as I snatched it out of the way before they had the chance to clink. “Whoa, what the hell was that?”
“What the hell was what?” she parroted, tossing a handful of napkins onto my spill.
“Who says I’m never getting married?”
She laughed loud and rich. “Uhhh, the universe at this point. When’s the last time you went on a date?”
Truth? A long fucking time ago, and I suspected being on the very welcomed receiving end of a booty call from Rebecca Florence, my tenth-grade girlfriend, last summer was not what she was talking about.
I scoffed. “When was the last time you went on a date?”
“Cal’s wedding, thank you very much.”
I quickly amended. “With a guy who didn’t make you dry-heave?”
Her shoulders fell. “A…while.”
Try at least six years.
I had no life due to the circumstances of being a part-time workaholic, part-time single dad. Lex, however, was a master at distracting herself. Dating meant giving a guy a chance. And giving a guy a chance meant opening herself up. And opening herself up meant facing the facts that no one would ever be Brenden.
It had been six years since she’d lost him—since we’d all lost him. Lex had moved on, but it wasn’t on the same trajectory. The once serial-dating fiery redhead was now the crazy cat lady about three decades too soon. Judy Lawson loved nothing more than to pry in her daughter’s life, and I think Lex allowed it because her mom had absolute shit taste in men.
Lex didn’t need Craig Lewis, a whiny shit stain of a man. She needed someone she couldn’t plow over with her larger than life personality. A man confident enough to sit in her shadow while she forged her own path. She was a handful. There was no denying that. But somewhere out there was a man aching for a challenge because he knew, at the end of the day, the sweet she gave would always be worth the chaos.
Brenden had been one of the few men who had ever been able to withstand the natural disaster that was Alexis Lawson.
And then he was gone.
And then Cal got married.
Next, Lauren was getting married.
And, now, it was just the two of us, alone at Huey’s with a pitcher of beer.
One day, I wasn’t going to be there anymore, either. Like, for example, next week when I had Jack.
Lex was a twenty-eight-year-old knockout. Men couldn’t pass her on the street without stopping to stare. I’d love to say that she didn’t know it, but that wasn’t Lex’s style. She knew she was gorgeous and could have the pick of any guy she wanted.
She just hadn’t found anyone she wanted yet.
Yet.
Yet.
“Hey.” I leaned forward when an idea struck me. “Why don’t you let me set you up with someone?”
“Because if your taste in women is anything to go off, your taste in men will be awful too?”
It was my turn to be offended. “What the hell is wrong with my taste in women?”
“You don’t have any. Like none. The last date you went on was a woman who had been divorced but still cried about her socks-with-sandals-wearing ex-husband. And I’m not talking about three-a.m. calls from Rebecca Flojob, who has an ancient Egyptian scroll of her own problems.”
Holy. Shit. Atlanta was a huge city, but in a lot of ways, it could be a really small town.
I glanced around the bar before lowering my voice. “How the hell do you know about Rebecca?”
“Because shortly after that night, she had a hair appointment and gave the entire salon a play-by-play. Don’t worry. You were a lot better in bed in her story than you were in Lauren’s. So good they were still talking about it a week later when I went in for a trim.”
I thrust a hand into the top of my hair. “Jesus, don’t you and your mom go to the same salon?”
She shot a mischievous grin. “Judy was simply happy to hear you were getting some. That pink dildo of yours had her worried for a while.”
Rolling my shoulders, I faked a gag and then tipped my beer up for a long sip. “Anyway… Let’s get back to me setting you up.”
She propped her elbow on the table and then her chin on her fist. “Okay. What do