Page 7 of When the Time Is Right
The blushing bride’s family was absolutely insane, and I had somehow gotten tasked with running interference. Her mom hated her dad, who had brought his once mistress, now wife, with him to the ceremony. Her sister hated her mom, so she refused to so much as use the same public restroom with the woman. Her dad hated her mother’s brother Saul, though there were five of her brothers at the wedding, and so far, I was zero for three in guessing which balding New Yorker was Saul. And that’s not even to mention Grandma Marie, who had spent the entire day mad-dogging Cal.
It was a nightmare trying to keep all the family feuds straight. My strategy had been to bulldoze any conversation in which two of Vanessa’s family members were involved. I’d been positive I was going to be the wedding’s most hated guest before it was all said and done. However, now that it was the end of the night, I had not one single fuck to give.
“You ready to go, bud?” I asked Jack when I made my way off the dance floor.
He leveled me with a hard glare and crossed his arms over his chest. “What is wrong with you? You didn’t even try to catch it!”
Chuckling, I ruffled the top of his thick, blond hair. “That’s because I didn’t want to catch it.”
He let out a low growl and stomped his foot. “Why not?”
“Because.” I jerked my chin. “Come on. Go grab your jacket so we can get out of here.”
“Because isn’t an answer.”
He wasn’t wrong. But I was dying to get out of there, out of that suffocating suit, and possibly grab something that didn’t end in “tartare” to eat on the way home. I suspected explaining to my son why I had zero plans of ever getting married was going to take longer than the thirty seconds I had to spare.
“Jack, seriously, go get your jacket. And the bubble lawn mower Vanessa gave you for being the ring bearer, and—”
Thoroughly affronted, he balled his fists at his sides. “I’m not taking that thing home. All the guys will laugh at me.”
“I’m not sure we can count Nolan as all the guys, but sure. Of course. How silly of me.”
Lauren and I had taught our son to read when he was four. Usually, I was proud of this, watching people’s jaws slack open as he perused the adult menu at restaurants, pronouncing words like linguine, parmesan, and Bolognese with ease. However, the minute he’d opened that bubble mower and read the recommended ages were twelve to thirty-six months, I’d never regretted anything more.
Cal had always been shit at buying gifts for Jack. He tried. He really did, but after the four-hundred-dollar ninja throwing stars he’d given my son for his third birthday, Lauren had forbidden Calvin from giving him anything other than cash or a donation to Jack’s college savings account.
Vanessa had not gotten the memo.
Still, I believed wholeheartedly in being grateful for the things you were given, and I worked hard to instill that in my son. But seriously, my boy was quite possibly the easiest kid in the world to shop for. He loved every sport imaginable. The last time Cal had been over to the house, Jack had wiped the floor with him at an extremely competitive game of lacrosse. Vanessa could have bought him any ball in existence and it would have been the highlight of his life. Actually, I believed those were the exact words I’d used when she’d texted me to ask what he might like. Yet Vanessa had gotten him a bubble-blowing lawn mower for toddlers.
I loved Cal, but the only thing worse than his taste in gifts was his taste in women.
“You don’t have to play with it, bud. How about first thing tomorrow morning, I give you a screwdriver and you can use my workbench in the garage to take it apart.”
His eyes lit. “Can I use the circular saw?”
Oh, yeah. He was totally my kid.
“Nope. If I send you back to your mom missing a finger, I’ll be missing my head. Now, come on and hurry up. I’m starving, and this tie is cutting off the blood to my brain.” I made a show of staggering from side to side, tugging at my collar. “Must. Get. This. Off.”
He giggled, and just as it had since the day I’d heard his first cry, the sound of his voice filled my heart in unimaginable ways.
Truth be told, I’d never wanted kids. After the way I’d grown up, bouncing around from relatives and foster care, I knew firsthand that not everyone was cracked up for parenthood. Though, at twenty-two, without so much as a serious girlfriend, I hadn’t given it a ton of thought, either.
However, that was all before I’d fallen in love with my best friend.
