her hand off my thigh while he was talking. This meant I spent the majority of that dinner hard or mentally listing construction equipment in reverse alphabetical order.
Honestly though, by the time it was all said and done and Mark and I had argued over the check—an argument I eventually won—I’d forgotten that he was in his mid-fifties. Lauren was right. He was a good guy. He loved his kids and said all the right things about respecting my relationship with Jack but also being eager to be a part of his life. And Lauren, holy shit. I’d never seen her that happy.
So, as the valet arrived with my truck and Lauren pulled me in for a quick side hug, I told her, “You and Mark should take Jack out to dinner one day this week.”
Her blue eyes lit. “You have him this week.”
“Yeah, I know. But just a quick dinner. Ease him into it. That way, I’ll be there when he gets home in case he has any questions or anything. He’ll see I’m happy for you. That’ll make him happy too.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “You are amazing.”
I nodded. “I know. But I never get sick of hearing it.”
After another round of goodbyes, Lex and I loaded up in my truck and headed home.
I was smiling.
She had a bag with two to-go desserts in her lap, so she was smiling too.
All in all, it was a pretty damn successful night.
“Hey, thanks for going with me tonight,” I said as I pulled into her driveway.
“Are you kidding me? That was the highlight of my week. Mark is a dreamboat. You think his son is still single?”
I hit her with a side-eye. Mark Junior wasn’t getting within a square mile of the woman in my passenger seat, so there was no point in talking about it. “The highlight of your week, huh?”
She shrugged. “What can I say? I’ve had a boring week.”
“Nothing exciting happened? Like, say, last night? Or this afternoon when you held a man up at pressure-washer point.”
“Nothing that I can think of.” She swayed her head from side to side. “Though I vaguely remember someone calling a time-out, and after that, it all got a little foggy.”
Just as I was about to ask if she was ready to talk about it—because I was—she spoke without even an ounce of bullshit in her voice.
“You were pretty great tonight, Hud. It’s got to be weird being connected to someone the way you and Lauren are, but she’s really lucky a guy like you knocked her up and not some selfish asshole loser. Jack has a badass for a dad. And none of us tell you often enough, but you’re…” She paused, put her hand on the door handle, shook her head, and then finished with, “Well, you’re okay.”
Not often was I speechless, but a compliment like that, about how I was as a co-parent and a father, it meant a fuck of a lot. Especially coming from her.
“Anyway, don’t let it go to your head. You’re also a cocky, bulldozing jackass sometimes.” She hopped out and said through the window, “So I guess the universe does like balance. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Be careful. I lo—” Her mouth slammed shut, preventing her from saying something we’d told each other for years.
Things were different, not normal or even pretend normal.
She didn’t have to say it that night, but as she sprinted to her well-lit front door, I called, “You too, Lex.”
That night, the drive home felt wrong. Putting distance between us didn’t seem like the right thing to do. Not when even our chaste touches throughout the evening had my blood racing. Not when she looked that sexy and sounded so sweet.
What the fuck was I doing?
No sooner than I pulled into my driveway did I back out.
Home wasn’t where I wanted to be that night. Fuck the time-out.
Pulling up on her curb, I watched her swaying in her living room to a song I couldn’t hear and drink wine straight from the bottle.
She was beautiful, and I was done wasting time.
I didn’t hit the word chandelier quite the way Sia did, but if history and red wine proved anything, I’d get damn close after the twentieth time on repeat.
It wasn’t my first choice in how the night would end, but I couldn’t deny that, for whatever reason, I felt good. So, instead of feeding the ladies and going to bed, I decided a night cap, some barefoot dancing,