by Kendall Ryan
A silence falls around us, and Wren leans over to briefly rest her head on my shoulder.
“You okay?” I ask.
She lifts her head, nodding.
“So, Brian, tell everyone about that case you won last week,” Layne says, obviously hoping to bring him into the conversation.
He gives her a dismissive wave. “It’s not all that interesting a story. My firm found a legal precedent we could use to hold the plaintiff liable.” Brian grabs his beer and takes a swig, and then he rises to his feet. “I need to find the restroom. I’ll be back.”
When he grasps both of Layne’s shoulders and gives them a squeeze as he passes, I have the strange urge to punch the guy for putting his hands on her.
Okay, that’s weird. It’s not like Layne’s never brought a guy around before. There’s just something about this one that bugs me.
Maybe it’s because I know she thinks it could lead to something serious. And based on the vibe I’ve gotten in the last five minutes, this guy isn’t going to be good enough for her. A smart, gorgeous woman like her deserves someone who’s the full package, not some safety-net guy who’s going to give her two-point-five kids and a white picket fence while slowly boring her to death.
Once Brian’s out of earshot, Kristen flashes Layne a knowing smile. “He seems nice.”
Layne nods in agreement. “It’s just been so easy with him, you know? No drama, no game playing. It’s been great. I finally feel like I found someone I’m on the same page with.”
Wren picks at the blood-red polish on her thumbnail.
“What did you think, Griff?” Layne asks, surprising me.
“My opinion matters?” I ask, tipping my glass to my lips and taking a long drink.
A small crease forms between her brows. “Of course it does.”
I shrug. “He seems . . .” I search for the right word, narrowing my eyes as I think it over.
Boring. Dull. Like a tool.
Finally, I settle on, “Mature.”
Layne’s full lips part into a smile, and it eases some of the tension inside me. “Exactly.”
As long as she’s happy, I should be happy too, right? So, why do I feel angry at the thought of her ending up with a guy like Brian?
Let it go, Griff. It’s none of your damn business.
“What did you do last night?” I ask Wren, hoping to move the conversation along to a new topic.
“I broke up with that guy I was dating.” Frowning, she takes a sip of her champagne. “He was a snob and terrible in bed. I swear, one more bad date and I’m writing off men. Except you, of course,” she says with a smile and a wink for me.
“Sounds like you’re better off without him,” I say.
“Griffin, sometimes I think you’re the only guy who actually knows what a woman needs,” she says with a sigh.
“Yeah, and what’s that? Someone down to earth who can supply multiple orgasms?” I look right at Layne as the words leave my mouth, and she shakes her head, wearing a knowing smirk.
She sees right through my games, but that’s part of our fun.
When Brian returns to the table, our server appears, and we place an order for several appetizers and another round of drinks. And when the perky young waitress turns to saunter away, I watch as Brian’s gaze drifts south, lingering on the curve of her ass in her skintight black pants.
Real mature, Brian.
My assumptions were correct. Brian is a tool.
I might not be the right man for Layne, but I’m pretty damn sure that neither is this dick, Brian.
5
* * *
LAYNE
“Cheers, babe, to our six-month anniversary, and to many more to come.” I raise my champagne flute and smile at the literal dream-come-true of a man sitting across from me.
Brian smiles back, his chocolate-brown eyes glittering in the warm candlelight of the intimate French restaurant I picked out for our anniversary. My schedule has been packed lately, and it’s been a while since we’ve gone on a real date, so this time, we decided to go all out. After all, it’s not every day you get to celebrate spending six months with a man who makes you grateful not to be part of the dating scene anymore.
“Cheers,” he replies, clinking his glass to mine.
We’re both taking a sip as our server returns with our entrees. Coq au vin for me, and the chef’s signature sea bass for him.
My mouth waters at the smell of our food, and watching Brian’s face light up brings a smile to mine. This place has been my best-kept secret in the city for five years now, and I’m so happy to finally have someone to share it with.
“Bon appétit,” the waiter says, bowing slightly.
“Merci beaucoup,” I reply.
Brian and I dig in, appreciative moans escaping our lips as we taste the immaculately curated dishes. Each bite is divine, the perfect meal for the perfect anniversary date.
Maybe my stomach doesn’t exactly do cartwheels when he’s near, but Brian has always made me feel happy and safe. Things with him have just always been so simple.
We met at a law conference, the kind of boring networking event I can barely drag myself out of the office to go to anymore, and from the moment he handed me his business card, I knew Brian was exactly what I was looking for. Mature, successful, attractive. The kind of man you settle down with, who gives you the white picket fence and two-point-five kids. Or in our case, the kind of man who can equally contribute to your mortgage and doesn’t bat an eye when you say you need to cancel dinner because a contract is taking longer to pin down than you anticipated.
Although I’ve thought about our future many times, we haven’t actually talked about it yet. I’m hoping that changes tonight. And I’m thinking this might be as good a time as any to finally bring it up and move things in the direction they’re naturally heading anyway.
“So, babe, where do you see yourself in, like, five years?” I try to keep my tone as casual as possible. For as confident as I feel in our relationship, I negotiate for a freaking living. I understand how delicately these things need to be handled.
The corner of his mouth lifts into a smirk. “Living on my own private island in the middle of the Caribbean, working remotely and eating bonbons.”
“I’m serious.”
“Me too. I haven’t been working my ass off for the past fifteen years to keep spinning my wheels in this rat race forever.”
“Well, in this fantasy, am I with you on this private island?”
“Of course you are. Just you, me, and miles of clear blue water.”
Okay, not what I was expecting.
I take a sip of my water, doing my best to keep my cool. “Brian, you do realize that I’ll be thirty-nine in five years, right?”
“Babe, you’re beautiful. I’ve seen your mom, and honestly, you have nothing to worry about. I’m well aware of what happens to women’s bodies with age.”
“Does that include what happens to our eggs with age?”
He pauses, his eyes wary. “What do your eggs have to do with anything?”
I give him a forced smile. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe with the whole getting pregnant and having babies thing?”
“Oh.” He sets his fork down and stiffens as he meets my eyes. “I, uh, I never really saw kids in my future.”
Wait, what?
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
Trying to calm myself, I take a deep breath. Maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds. Maybe we can work through this. “Okay . . . what does that mean? Like you haven’t thought about it before, but are open to it?”
“No, that means that I don’t want them. I’m sorry, Layne, I guess I thought . . . well, I didn’t think you wanted them either.”
Gulping the last of my champagne, I stare up at the ceiling, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. Stupid, Anderson, stupid. Pull yourself the hell together.
I look back at him, my eyes narrow and my voice tight. “What makes you think I didn’t
want kids?”
He shrugs. “You’re such a high-powered, no-nonsense, driven woman. I thought if you hadn’t had any by now, it meant you weren’t interested.”
“You can have career ambitions and want a family. It’s not the 1950s.” My voice is stern, and my eyes are still narrowed.
“Well, I know that. I guess I just assumed you had your priorities straight.”
Shocked, I try not to gasp, unable to believe what I’m hearing. “My priorities straight? Are you kidding me? What is wrong with you?”
Brian looks dejectedly down into his plate, and suddenly, I feel the whole night crumbling around me—and our relationship with it. I was wrong. So wrong. How could I be so horribly, terribly wrong about so many things?
“I’m sorry. I’ll never want kids,” he says, his eyes trained on his half-eaten bass.
“Well, I do,” I reply, sitting up straighter and tossing my hair over my shoulder. “I always have.”
“I guess that’s it, then. I’m sorry, Layne, I really am.” He stands, places a hundred-dollar bill on the table, kisses me on the cheek, and walks out of the restaurant.
My mouth falls open and tears well up in my eyes. Suddenly, I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach and slapped across the face at the same time.
Before I fully lose it in public, I flag down our waiter and hand him more than enough money to cover the rest of the bill. He looks confused but sympathetic, asking no questions as I practically sprint out of the restaurant, wiping black mascara tears off my cheeks.
Once in my car, I pull my phone out of my purse and call the first number that comes to mind.
Half an hour later, I’m sitting on my couch, nursing a strong margarita in my comfiest pair of yoga pants, when a knock on the door pulls me out of my self-pitying trance.
My first thought is that it might be Brian, crawling on his hands and knees, begging me to take him back. But I know that won’t be the case. Brian isn’t the begging type. Besides, he made his position perfectly clear. There’s no room to compromise on bringing another human into the world.
As I go to answer the door, I figure it’s probably Kristen. When I called her on the drive home, I insisted she didn’t need to come over, and the best thing for me would be to just drink alone and wallow. Maybe she saw through all that. Maybe she’s worried about me and wants to make sure I don’t drink myself into a coma. Either way, no matter how sure I was half an hour ago that I wanted to be alone, I have to admit that a little company sounds nice right about now.
“Look, Kris, you didn’t have to come over—” I say, stopping mid-sentence once I swing the door open.
Because it’s not Kristen standing there. It’s Griffin, with a bottle of top-shelf tequila in one hand and my favorite margarita mix in the other. Dressed in dark jeans and a leather jacket with a white T-shirt underneath, he looks undeniably good.
Standing here in my ratty old oversized law school sweatshirt, I kind of wish I were more of a sexy loungewear kind of girl. But it’s Griffin. He’s definitely not someone I need to impress.
“What are you doing here?”
“Krissy told me what happened between you and the ass-wipe. I thought you could use some cheering up.”
Oh. I can’t help the soft pang inside my chest. “How did you know I was drinking margaritas?”
He smiles, cocking his head to the side and raising an eyebrow. “As far as alcohol goes, you’re pretty fucking predictable, Anderson.”
I scoff, crossing my arms and shifting my weight from one foot to the other. Griffin is the last person I was expecting to see right now but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy to see him.
“Come in.”
I step out of the way as he breezes past me, the scent of his cologne washing over me. While I’m not usually a fan of masculine colognes, I’m surprised to find that I don’t mind his smell. It’s familiar. Comforting, even. Sandalwood. Lavender. Safety.
“I didn’t realize you were a fan of the Real Housewives of Atlanta,” he says, setting the bottles on the kitchen counter and nodding to the TV playing loudly in the living room.
Quickly grabbing the remote, I switch over to an internet radio station, clicking on the first thing that pops up. “Today’s Top Hits” starts playing through the mounted speakers as I shrug in his direction. “I just needed evidence that my life could be much, much worse.”
“Living in a multimillion-dollar mansion with the ability to fulfill your every fleeting desire is worse than this?” He takes a quick, sweeping glance around my loft, which, to be fair, is no mansion.
But still, I bristle. “Hey, I worked hard for this place. It’s prime real estate in this neighborhood.”
He crosses his arms, arching a brow at the pile of dirty dishes in my sink. “If you were a Real Housewife, you’d pay someone to handle that shit for you.”
“I can handle that shit myself, thank you very much. Go easy on me . . . I just got dumped by the man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with.”
“From what Krissy told me, it sounds like it was more of a mutual thing than a full-on dumping.”
“Does it make a difference? I want kids, and he doesn’t. Actually, it’s worse than that. I want kids, and he thinks wanting kids makes me some weak, emotional, antiquated woman. How fucked up is that?”
Griffin slices a lime he found in my fridge into wedges and pours us each a drink, a blessedly strong one. But before he hands me my margarita, he pulls two shot glasses from the back of my cabinet and fills them to the brim.
I smirk as he slides a shot my way. “Is that what they’re teaching you in graduate school? To start every evening with a shot?”
“Only when there’s a damsel in distress.”
“Please don’t tell me that makes you my knight in shining armor.”
He smirks. “If the shoe fits . . .”
“Shut up and take this shot with me,” I say as I roll my eyes.
The clear liquid burns as it slides down my throat, the sour bite of lime afterward a welcome relief. I cough a little once my airway clears, and Griffin smiles at me from across the counter. When I give him a reproachful look, he backs off, raising his hands in surrender. We take one more shot before bringing our margaritas to the couch, where I curl up in the corner, resting my head on my favorite fuzzy blanket.
“This is nice,” Griffin says, draping his arm over the back of the couch and resting an ankle on his knee.
“Is this how you spend all your Saturday nights? Comforting your older female friends who’ve just been dumped?” I ask before taking a long sip of my drink. “You were always too good for him, you know. Sometimes what feels like an ending is actually a new beginning.” He places a hand on my knee as his blue-green eyes meet mine, and it takes all my strength not to burst out laughing.
“How often does that line work?”
“More often than you’d think.” His eyes soften, crinkling a little at the corners before he fires a cheeky wink my way.
This time I can’t help it. I roll my eyes.
“If you came here looking for a pity lay, you’ve come to the wrong place.”
His jaw ticks. “What makes you think all I’m looking for is a lay?”
I pause at his question. The seriousness and determination in his tone confuses and intrigues me at the same time. The look on his face is sure. Confident. “Why are you here, Griff?”
He shifts, turning his hips so he’s facing me straight on, his whole body aligned with mine. He takes my hand in his, running his thumb along my knuckles before meeting my eyes again. “I’ve never hidden the fact that I care about you, Layne. That’s why I’m here.”
Softening, I smile. “I’m sorry for making insinuations. God, I must sound like a bitch. Honestly, I’m glad you came. I realized after I hung up from Kris that I didn’t want to be alone.”
He lets go of my hand and picks up his drink again. “Yeah, when my sister hung up, I knew one of us needed to come over. Sh
e insisted you wanted to be alone, but I wasn’t buying that for a second.”
“Smart man.” I nod, taking another sip of the deliciously crisp drink.
“It’s not my first rodeo.” He grins.
I throw the remote at his head. “Are you referring to my six breakups in the year before Brian?”
His lips twitch. “Maybe.”
I take a deep breath and let my head drop back against the couch. He’s right. I’ve been through my fair share of men in my hunt for Mr. Right, and Kristen and Griffin have had a front row seat to all my dating disasters. Brian seemed the most normal of the bunch and to be honest on paper we looked like the perfect match. We’re both lawyers. Both in our mid-thirties.
Ugh. I need to stop thinking about Brian.
“Onward and upward,” I say, raising my glass to Griffin’s.
After clinking our glasses together, we both take a sip as a comfortable silence settles over us. It’s nice being with someone who just gets me, someone I don’t have to pretend around.
“Are you that torn up about this guy?” Griffin asks, his dark brows pushing together.
I take a moment to consider his question, and examine how I actually feel right now. And when I do, I begin to realize that it’s not my heart that hurts. It’s mostly my ego. I’m mad at myself that I wasted so much of my time on Brian before I figured out we weren’t right together.
But after all the dating mistakes I’ve made, I thought it wise not to spring the baby thing on a man on one of our first few dates. And by then, Brian and I had clicked so well and were operating on the exact same page, that I never even bothered bringing it up. I thought it was a forgone conclusion. He told me all the time how glad he was that he found me.
“I just feel like I wasted so much time when I really don’t have time to waste. I know my soul mate is out there somewhere, you know?” I swallow, a fresh wave of emotion hitting me. “It just sucks.”
Griffin frowns as he gazes at me. “You have nothing to worry about, Layne. You’re gorgeous, successful, and—”
I hold up one hand, stopping him. “I have everything to worry about. I’m thirty-four years old. If I don’t have a baby soon, I may lose my chance for good. Did you know that a woman’s reproductive health declines drastically at age thirty-five?”