“On another note.” Kane’s mood flips like a switch as he turns to me with a wide grin. “Ask that pretty girl out to dinner yet? We’re all kinda tired of you pussyfooting about.”
“I asked her.” I make myself busy and walk away. “She’s kinda prickly, so it’s hard to find the moment to ask that shit.”
“Moment?” Jay laughs and yanks the notebook from my hands. “We don’t wait formoments! We stop in front of them, hold them still – ‘cause they’re gonna give you excuses why it’s not a good idea – then we tell them what time they gotta be where they gotta be. Have we taught you nothing?”
I roll my eyes. “Not everyone is an obnoxious Bishop, ya know?”
“And yet, Kane and I are getting laid on the regular. It’s anecdotal, of course, but that leads me to believeyou’rea pussy, and we get pussy, so… maybe you should just show her your dick.”
“Worked for me.” Kane distractedly scrolls his cell. “I pulled my dick out the first day I met Jess, and now look at us. She’s gonna marry me and give me babies.”
“I don’t wanna get married or have babies.” I snatch my book back and walk away. “Been there, done that, don’t need to repeat the process.”
“So ask for a good time, then.” Jay falls into step with me as we move back into the hall. “She’s feisty as fuck, pretty as hell, and word on the street is she’s got a mean right hook. You know she’s gonna be fun when you get her alone. Power struggles in bed arefun,” he groans. “When they wanna be top dog, and they fight you for it. It’s hot, man. You oughtta give it a go.”
“She said no.” I hum under my breath and pretend her rejection doesn’t sting. Of course it does! I was so sure I would get a shy yes this morning, so when her rejection was delivered with pity in her eyes and a squeeze of my shoulder, what she intended to be the kindest rejection of all stung like a bitch.
“Wait. She said no?” Jay grabs my sore arm and tugs me around. “So you countered with yes, right?”
“No, I left her alone.”
“Dude! If she says no, you smile all charming and shit and say yes. A billion times. Over and over and over and over and over and over.” He smacks my forehead repeatedly. “And over and over again. Eventually they smile back, then you fuck like rabbits, and the world is all better again.”
I smack his hand away and turn into the next room. “Inmyworld, if I ask and she says she’d rather I didn’t exist, I step away and stop bothering her. I guess it’s the gentleman in me.”
“Gentleman.” Kane scoffs. “They don’t want a gentleman. They want someone who knows how to fuck them just right. They want to be sure you know what you’re doing. She’s probably hesitant because the dudes she’s fucked before didn’t know how to get her off, so now she’s worried you’ll be a wasted fuck too. Chicks care about their numbers, so if you wanna be one of them, you gotta work for it. That means you gotta show her you got it under control. Show her you know how to rock her world, then rock that fuckin’ world. She’ll come back for more, I promise. Then the only number you’ll be is number one.”
“No. I’m not gonna force myself on her more than I already have. I sit at the diner all the damn time hoping she’ll throw me a bone, but all she does is ask to be left alone, so… I’m not into non-consensual.”
“Nobody is saying non-consensual,” Jay scoffs. “Nobody is saying do something she doesn’t want. We’re saying shedoeswant it, she’s just too scared to ask for it. So your job,dumbass, is to provide her with the opportunity to say yes. She’s proud, so you gotta take away the fear of rejection or whatever.”
“Yeah…” I want them to be right. I want to taste Katrina more than I’ve ever wanted to taste anyone else in my life, but I have a fear of rejection, too. And what’s more, I have a fear of hurting her. I hardly even know her, but the thought of being the reason she gets hurt is too much for me to take. So I back my shit up and rebuild those walls I’ve been sitting behind for so long. Every time I get close, I back away again, becausewhat if?
“Anyway.” I meet Kane’s eyes. “Did you and Jess break the news to her family about the baby?”
“Next week.” Stopping at the top of the hall, he turns to me with a mixture of pride and terror shining in his eyes. “We have a scan booked in, since she’s already kinda far along. So we’re doing that, then dinner Monday night. I have from now until then to find the perfect ring and words that’ll talk her into staying mine forever, then I’m sealing this up and changing her name.”
“Just like that?” I smack the back of his head with my notebook as I pass. “You’re just gonna knock her up, marry her, and call it a day? I can see how she’s so in love with the romance.”
“You think she wants something more than that?” Stopping back in the kitchen, he turns to me with concern in his eyes. “I want it done before the baby arrives, so it’s not like I have a bunch of time. She won’t want to be nine months pregnant and saying herI do’s, so I kinda have a month or two here, then we lose our window.”
“You’re, what? Twelve weeks, maybe fourteen or so?”
He nods. Then he shrugs.
“Second trimester will be kinder to her. She’s still feeling a little green right now; her hormones are going whack, and her, well…” I point at my crotch. “Lots of shit happening in there right now. Second trimester is when things start to calm a little, so plan now, then get ready to jump maybe around eighteen weeks or so.”
“Eighteen?”
Like him, I nod, then shrug. “Or so. From then till about twenty-eight weeks, I figure she’ll be comfortable. But if you go longer than that, you’ll lose your window again.”
“Okay…” He rubs his hands together and nods as though that helps him think, then he repeats it over and over. “Okay. Okay. That gives us a ten-week window. I can make that work.” His eyes stop on mine. “She’ll say yes, right?”
“I suspect she will.” I head back toward the front door with a laugh and get ready to let ourselves out. Jo is at work but left a set of keys with us to get this done for her while she’s gone. She doesn’t want to see the system; she doesn’t want to manage the system. She just wants to know it’s there and operational. “I think you hooked your fish, Kane. I think you’re set. So I wouldn’t sweat the proposal. Jess is a sweetheart, and she’s kinda obsessed with you, so let it happen. Buy the pretty ring, get down on one knee, and promise a lifetime of protection.”
His eyes snap up when my voice changes tone. It was just the smallest change, something so subtle no one else would notice, but these guys aren’t regular people. They’re trained observers, and they observed the shit out of the way my voice just cracked. “How are you doing with all this?” Kane steps forward and drops a hand on my shoulder. “We joke about Katrina, then we talk about Jess and the baby, but… are you coping?”
“I’m doing fine.” I pull Jo’s front door closed and lock up. “But it’s not something I wanna sit around and chat about every day for the next nine months. This is about you, your baby, your wife, your world. So you have guys gotta stop dragging mine in and trying to slap it on top.”