“Oh no, I’m already into the hard stuff.” Kim lifted a flask she’d borrowed from Michael’s brother Billy for the sole reason of getting Darlene off the scent and took a bracing sip.
Darlene rubbed her hands. “Oooh, whatcha got? Can I have a sip?”
Kim handed over the flask without a word. It figured her son had hardly ever drunk before the last week yet his mom had no such reservations.
“Mmm.” She smacked her lips. “Bourbon. Haven’t had that in years. Good choice.”
Kim accepted the flask she passed back. “It’s extremely inappropriate for me to drink at a family get-together. I should be ashamed of myself.”
“Oh, pshaw to that. Look around. Everyone’s drinking and having a nice time. And that boy of mine.” She shook her head, clucking fondly.
Kim would’ve asked which of her boys she meant—she’d already met more of her children than she could remember—if she hadn’t followed the other woman’s gaze to where Michael crouched with brunette six-year-old twins, Esme and Abra, his sister Tanya’s kids. They were playing with some kind of tablet and squealing with laughter at whatever he was showing them. The grin on his face lit up the gym.
“He’s got a way with kids,” Kim commented. So odd he didn’t want any of his own. She supposed she had no room to talk since she’d been thrilled at the idea of being an aunt in spite of her decision to remain childless. A decision originally borne from pain that had eventually ended up being the right one for her.
Some people were meant to be aunts and uncles who spoiled kids rotten and some were meant to be parents. While others were stuck pretending they’d snuck in bourbon to prove they didn’t belong when a small, niggling part of them wanted nothing else.
“He always has. Even back when he was nothing but a young’un himself.” Darlene patted her large purple bouffant. It probably wasn’t actually a bouffant, just teased and sprayed to a volume Kim couldn’t get her own hair to reach.
The unusual hairstyle somehow matched Darlene’s painted-on jeans, ruffled blouse and cowboy boots. And the raucous smoke-tinged laughter that shook her body from boots to roots.
“He’s not exactly old now,” Kim said dryly. “Which reminds me. Do you know how old I am?” There, that should work to convince his mother that Kim was a black widow using sex and wiles to charm her wealthy eldest son.
“Sure I do. Michael said you were thirty-nine. I think that’s just great.”
Beam me up, Scotty. “You do?”
“Oh yeah.” Darlene slid her arm through Kim’s and marched her over to the other end of the refreshment table. She grabbed a handful of baby carrots sans dip and started munching with abandon. “I’m forty-six and in the market for a new bestie.”
Of course she was.
Time for a new tactic. “I already have a bestie. We’re kind of…exclusive besties.”
“Oh, we can just sneak around then on weekends and nights off. I won’t tell if you won’t.” Darlene hip-checked her and held out a carrot. “Veggie?”
“Not that one.” Kim shook her head and selected a celery stalk. Just to be spiteful she dipped the vegetable in ranch before she crunched in. She couldn’t give up this easily. Bad enough that she could tell Michael was heading down a dangerous path—one she’d already caught herself skipping along merrily when she wasn’t paying attention. His mother liking her too was simply unacceptable.
“I’m a serial dater,” she announced. “My ex-boyfriend said I broke his heart. I tend to like younger men and then when I get bored, I wander on to the next. I’m not a nice person. Everyone says so. Even my brother. He’s moving across the country to get away from me.” Not exactly true but desperate measures and all.
“Good for you, dear. About time those men get some of their own medicine. Why should they get to have all the fun?” Absently, Darlene patted her arm while seeking out someone across the room. “Gert, over here. I have someone I’d like you to meet. This is Kim, Michael’s girlfriend. She works at that big bird sanctuary over on 41. She brought me the cutest stuffed macaw.”
“Technically it wasn’t for you. It was for the twins—”
“Kim, this is Gertie, my older sister. She’s a bit of a wild card so watch out.”
“Oh, she’s lovely.” The woman who must be Gert rushed Kim in a football-style tackle, folding her in a welcoming embrace that smelled of talcum powder and heavy floral perfume. “Our Michael always had good taste.” Gert moved back and patted Kim’s cheeks.
“Nice to meet you, Gert. I’m not his girlfriend.” Kim glanced helplessly at Darlene, now chowing down on cherry tomatoes and broccoli florets. “I’m really not, I swear.”
“And a shy one at that. What a hoot.” Gert slapped her knee—actually slapped her knee—and demanded to see Darlene’s macaw.
From there, everything spiraled out of control.
By the time Michael found her drowning her sorrows in the punch bowl half an hour later, she’d committed to wallowing. She had failed, utterly. Part of the point of going there tonight had been to show to Michael and everyone else that she wasn’t girlfriend material. She sure as hell hadn’t been a decent wife. She’d tried. Oh she’d tried. Eventually it became easier to just cut her losses and walk.
She’d hoped to avoid that for Michael’s sake—and hers. She liked him enough to wish that this…ease between them would last forever. That things would never get messy or complicated or painful. But everyone kept insisting th
ey were a couple. It had only been days since they’d met and still, Michael held her hand like she was more to him than a lover. More than a friend.