“Lucy didn’t get to go to school.”
“No.” Ty’s eyes went soft. “There wasn’t anyone willing to pay her way. She didn’t have the best grades because she worked two jobs all the way through high school. She doesn’t like to feel like a charity case, so you have to be a little sneaky. I do the pay it forward thing on her a lot. I also make her casseroles and pretend they come from my mom and I’m trying not to waste them.”
“You make her casseroles?”
Ty nodded. “I’m not a great cook, but I can casserole the shit out of meat and cheese.”
The lengths the other man went to for Lucy hit Michael hard. This wasn’t about wanting to get into her panties. This was years’ worth of longing. “You really care about her.”
“I told you. I love her.”
He wasn’t sure how Ty so easily said the words. There wasn’t a hint of vulnerability in the announcement, merely truth. “Then this is a mistake.”
Ty sat back, a weary look on his face. “I should have known you would be a wishy-washy bastard.”
“I’m not wishy-washy.” He was smart. He’d been impulsive the night before, but now he had to look at the reality of the situation. The idea of getting to have her had caused him to sit in his SUV until he finally had to say yes. But this morning he was worried he’d leapt way before bothering to look.
Damn. He was wishy-washy. He’d never been wishy-washy. He was the man who made decisions.
“You said you were in, and now you’re talking like you’re out,” Ty complained.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to be out, but there were problems Ty wasn’t considering. “I guess I thought you weren’t in love with her.”
“Well, you thought wrong. I don’t know how that changes things.”
“I’m not in love with her.” He needed to make that plain.
A muscle in Ty’s jaw twitched slightly, but he obviously tried to look like that statement hadn’t bothered him. “Good, because then when you leave you won’t try to take her with you.”
Ty didn’t have a great poker face. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t like the thought of Ty thinking he was an asshole. Which was weird because for the last several years he hadn’t cared what anyone thought. “It’s not that I don’t care about her. It’s just…I can’t do that again. I can’t be in love with someone again. Why are we having this conversation?”
Ty shrugged. “I have no idea, man, but as long as we’re having it, you should know that I call bullshit.”
“Bullshit?”
Ty nodded sagely. “Bullshit.”
“What is that supposed to mean? You can’t just call bullshit. You have no idea what I’ve been through and what I’m capable of.”
“I know you’re real damn capable of being a jerk, but you’re not with Lucy. You grumble and growl your way through everything, but when she walks in a room you’re suddenly a big old ball of jelly.”
He did not like the thought of that. “I am not.”
“Are, too.” Ty sounded like a kid on a playground. Rubber and glue.
There was a laugh from the group of women across the café, and Michael turned to glance over. Lucy was sitting in the middle of the women, and she was so pretty it hurt. Dark hair and big eyes that kicked him in the gut every time he saw her. He wasn’t quite sure why she did it for him. He worried that it was about the fact that she was the polar opposite of Jessie.
“There. That look on your face is precisely why this could work,” Ty said.
It was time to stop being a wishy-washy prick. He needed to be in or out, and having the conversation with himself wasn’t fixing the problem. His brain told him this was a bad idea and it would end up hurting someone. His dick thought it was a perfect idea. So he needed to put it out there and make a logical decision. He could still make those. “I don’t see what I bring to the table. Even in the short term.”
His dick saw exactly what he brought, but then his dick might have an overinflated sense of importance.
Ty considered the statement for a moment. “Lucy wants you. You coming in for the short term means Luce gets to satisfy her curiosity, and she won’t wonder if it could have worked. Because according to you, it won’t.”
It was perverse since he’d literally said the words about fifty times now, but he wanted to argue. “So I’m just the second dick.”
“Do you want to be more?”
That was the question. It was the idea that he wouldn’t have any responsibility that made him say yes in the first place. But then morning had come, and he’d started to wonder what the hell he was doing. “I don’t know.”