Mac just grins. “Luckily, wet clay can be reshaped.” He nods to the gouged clay. “Show me.” His command shivers through me, and I make the mistake of meeting Simone’s eyes.
She wiggles her eyebrows, mouth forming the words show me in a much more suggestive way. And damn it, I’m blushing again.
I turn my attention to my wheel as Mac rinses his hands in my bucket of water and watches me. I wet my own hands again, then shape the bowl just like he taught me.
“Good, Trina,” he says, and oh, my name on his tongue sounds sinful. “You’re a natural.” Mac’s eyes darken, and for a few long seconds, I’m caught in the crossfire of his gaze.
Then someone—Candice, maybe?—clears their throat, and Mac jerks his gaze away. He mumbles something about helping the other students, and I busy myself shaping and reshaping my bowl.
I end up with a bowl, a cup, and a little flat jewelry tray by the end of the class. Mac will have to fire our creations in his kiln once before we can glaze and fire it again, which means we’ll be coming back next week. I pretend that doesn’t make my heart leap. Most of the students except for my crew have filed out of the class by the time Mac removes his apron.
He smiles at the five of us. “Good work today, ladies.”
“We had a good teacher.” Simone winks at him, then winks at me.
Subtle. Real subtle.
“You should see an optometrist for that eye twitch,” I tell her.
Simone just laughs.
Mac clears his throat, then his lips tip up in that cheeky grin that makes my cheeks burn hot. “How do you feel about that pool lesson this weekend, Trina? My father’s been asking about you. Said you need to come by the Grove before he gets too lonely out there.”
“Oh, I—” I’m about to come up with an excuse—any excuse—when Simone and Fiona exchange a glance, and Simone lets out a little whoop.
“Girls’ night!” She grins, then arches her eyebrows at the rest of us. “Yeah? Yeah.”
“I’ll book the salon for some blowouts,” Fiona says. “Jen, make sure you have the evening off. Wait, what evening are we doing this?”
“We?” I ask. “Girls’ night?” When did my pool lesson with Hamish—which I fully intended on avoiding—turn into a full-on girls’ night out that somehow includes blowouts at the salon?
“Saturday,” Candice answers Fiona. “The Cedar Grove, right?” This, she directs at Mac.
Mac’s grin spreads into a full smile. “The Cedar Grove.” He nods.
“We can get our hair done, then head to Katrina’s to get ready. You can do our makeup, right?”
“I don’t… Toby and Katie…”
“Clancy and Allie can watch them,” Candice cuts in, waving a hand. “They’re pretty much in love with Mr. Fuzzles anyway, so any excuse to spend time at your place will be enough for them.”
“Mr. Fuzzles?” Mac asks, eyebrows arched.
I shake my head. “New kitten. Don’t ask. It’s been an eventful week.”
“He’s the cutest. Little white paws.” Simone lets out a squeaky noise. “You should come meet him, Mac. I can just imagine a big, strong man like you holding a little, tiny, furry kitten. That’s the stuff dreams are made of.”
“He should come meet him?” I repeat dumbly. I feel like I have whiplash from staring down everyone who talks. Mac should absolutely not, ever, not in a million years come meet my new cat. No way.
“This is going to be so fun!” Candice says, and I’m ashamed to say I’m tempted to be violent with my own beloved sister.
Murder is wrong. Do not murder your sister. Murder will get you put in jail for the rest of your life, even if she deserves it.
“You can say that again. Saturday night! Yay!” Simone hooks her arm through Fiona’s. “I’ll make mini quiches. You bring wine. We should get our hair done just after lunch so we can meet up at Trina’s early enough to get ready. Then we can have some kitty time too.”
“Definitely.” Fiona nods decisively. “We could do an early dinner. Charcuterie boards!”
Biting my lip, I turn to Mac. “I guess everyone will be at the Grove on Saturday.” I give him an apologetic smile. “Hope that’s okay.”
“I’ll tell Dad to batten down the hatches in preparation.”
“I heard that!” Simone calls out from the doorway. She pauses, turns, and grins. “Not a bad idea, actually. I’m feeling like letting loose.”
Jen, Candice, Simone, and Fiona leave, and all of a sudden I’m alone with Mac. Tension stretches taut between us. I should walk away. I really, really should. But somehow, my feet stay anchored to the ground. My body burns in every place he’s ever touched, from my hands to my hips to the thighs that were pressed against his only a few days ago.
He stands there, just a couple of feet away from me, and it feels like every cell in my body is drawn to him.
I clear my throat and jerk my thumb over my shoulder. “I should…”
“Yeah.” Mac rubs the back of his neck, and neither of us make a move to leave. His grey-blue eyes meet mine, and a little smile tips up his lips.
I don’t want to leave. Not even a little bit. “I didn’t know you were into pottery,” I say. “Dorothy said you were kind of famous.”
Color rises high on Mac’s cheeks, and he shrugs the comment away. “I don’t have much time to do it during the school year, but summers tend to be productive.”
“Oh! Do you have kids?”
“No, I—”
“Hey Trina, you coming?” Candice pokes her head through the door. “Sorry to interrupt, but apparently Fallon is putting lunch on at the café to celebrate our newfound love of pottery.”
“Yeah. Sure. Of course.” I glance at Mac. “See you Saturday.”
He nods, his eyes lingering on mine, then dropping to my lips. Before I can do anything stupid, I turn on my heels and walk away, but I stop when I get a few steps away. Glancing over my shoulder at him, I tilt my head. “My car—was that you?”
“Was what me?” Mac picks up a stool and stacks it on top of another, not meeting my eyes.
“Did you drop it off in town this weekend after Remy fixed the tire?”
Mac looks at me then, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He lifts a shoulder, then bends over to pick up a stack of stools. “You seemed like you might need a break. It was the least I could do.”
My heart grows so fast I can barely catch a breath. Through a thick throat, I squeeze out enough air to speak. “Thanks, Mac.”
He just nods. “See you on Saturday.”
“Yeah,” I answer, lingering, before finally getting my butt in gear and leaving before I really do anything stupid.
6
Trina
Candice was right. Allie and Clancy, Fiona’s stepdaughter, are more than happy to spend time with my kids—and the kitten, of course.
Mr. Fuzzles, despite my grumbling about taking care of a pet, hasn’t been a bad addition to the household. Last night, after the kids had gone to bed and I was zoned out watching The Bachelor on TV, he jumped up on the couch beside me and stretched his little body next to my thigh, curling his tiny white paws under his chin. It was the first time he’d approached me, and it made my heart thump harder than it should. When I used a gentle, timid finger to scratch behind his ears, he made the cutest purring sounds I’d ever heard while his tail flicked over and back across my thigh.
Then, out of the blue, he jumped off the couch, gave me a look over his shoulder that I can only describe as pure, unadulterated sass, and sauntered away. As if he knew he was winning me over. Little shit.
Now it’s Saturday afternoon, and Toby and Katie are playing outside with Allie and Clancy. I just got back from the salon with the girls, and I can only hope that Hamish did, indeed, batten down the hatches. These ladies are not messing around. It’s barely past six o’clock in the evening and we’ve already made our way through three and a half bottles of wine and an industrial amount of mini quiches. The charcuterie boards h
ave long since been demolished.
While I sit at my vanity, Simone lounges on my bed and Candice peruses my closet. Fiona is in the bathroom doing her makeup while Jen reads a book on my armchair, legs hanging sideways off the arm as she waits for everyone to get ready.
Candice lets out a long sigh and finally turns to me. “Trina, can you do that thing you do where you wave a magic wand and make me look amazing?”
I frown, laughing. “What?”
“You know, you tuck my shirt in and cuff my jeans and then do stuff with accessories and hair and I go from frumpy and old to a super-hot MILF in like ten seconds?”
“You want me to style you?” I tilt my head.
“Yes!” She stands in the middle of my room and spreads her arms. “Fix this.”
I smile and do as she says. She’s wearing a silky, draped top with an asymmetrical neckline, but her skirt sits too low on the hips. It doesn’t show off her tiny waist at all. I tap my chin, then dig through my closet for a high-waisted, faux-leather skirt that will hit Candice just below the knees. I tell her to put it on. That skirt is hot. On me, it hits scandalous mini-skirt territory and used to make Kevin cluck about my age.
Once she has it on, it only takes a bit of tucking, a few bobby pins in her gorgeous ombre hair, and a touch more blush.
“There.” I stand back and smile.
“Holy shit.” Simone sits up on the bed, glass of wine dangling between her fingers. “Do me next!”
Candice moves to a mirror, looks at herself, then shakes her head and beams at me. “You are so freaking talented, Katrina. You should do this professionally.”
“What, dress people?” I snort and shake my head, but Fiona walks out of the bathroom and whistles.
“I’d pay for someone to tell me how to dress if I ended up looking like that,” Fiona says.
“Same.” Simone stands up and spreads out her arms. “Do me! Do me!”
Jen looks up and nods. “You could make it a business.” When I frown at her, Jen shrugs. “If I can bake, and Candice can do yoga, Simone can do social media and websites, and the four of us can run a café, then you can do that. People would pay.” Then she returns to her book.
I blink. For some reason, her words hit me hard. Jen isn’t the type of person to mince her words. She’s incredibly logical, methodical, and hearing her say that I’m good at styling… I don’t know. It means a lot. It shouldn’t, but it does.
So, I take a sip of wine and get to work. I put Simone in a gorgeous orange wrap dress that sets off her hair and eyes, then add lots of gold jewelry. Then Fiona puts on a tight, short-sleeved green top and the same slim-fitting black pants she had on before. Jen refuses my services, but she does let me touch up her makeup and when she glances in the mirror, I see a hint of a smile on her lips. The three others twirl and laugh and flick their hair, then tell me I’m a genius.
All I did was dress them, but sure. I’ll take the compliment.
I feel twenty years younger than I am right now. Girls’ night? I haven’t had a girls’ night in far, far too long. And I haven’t had someone actually appreciate the fact that I’m good at hair and makeup and styling clothes in even longer. I’d started to feel like my interest in “girly” things was something to be ashamed of. Lord knows Kevin mocked it often enough for me to doubt myself.
Never mind the fact that I managed all our household affairs and even did his bookkeeping and management before he got big enough to hire a team. But I learned that when you want to be typically feminine, you have to deal with people assuming that you left your brain at the door.
I smile, then turn to my closet and suddenly remember what I’m doing. I’m going to see Mac. I’m going to play pool. In his presence. At a bar. With all these crazy women egging me on.
Oh, no.
“What the hell am I going to wear?” I turn to my friends, panic suddenly rising inside me. What am I even doing? I should be spending time with my kids and making sure they’re okay with the divorce, not going out and meeting strange, sexy, pottery-throwing, motorcycle-riding hunks.
“Okay.” Fiona puts her glass of wine down and lifts her palms up, entering what I can only describe as Fiona Gets Down to Business Mode. “We’re going for sexy but not trying too hard, but so smoking-hot Mac won’t know what hit him. I want his jaw to hit the floor as soon as you walk in. I want him to forget how to speak. Your outfit needs to totally lobotomize him.”
“Yes. Big hair, big makeup, tight clothes,” Simone announces. “Hooker-chic.”
“Whoa, um, no,” I cut in.
“Oh! Wear that white bodysuit with the low back!” Candice says, eyes brightening. “You know the one. It’s super flattering and has those long sleeves and the low scoop. No cleavage, but damn sexy.”
I tilt my head. “With jeans and heeled boots. That could work.”
“Candice, be honest,” Simone says seriously. “Is it truly sexy? Is it lobotomy-inducing sexy?”
“The man’s brain will leak out of his ears. I promise. You haven’t seen my sister when she tries hard.”
Fiona chokes on her wine. “Wait…all this time, all these outfits I’ve seen you in—that’s you not trying hard?” She gapes at me, then at the rest of them. “Am I just a frumpy person, or is that not shocking to you all?”
I blush and try to hide how much I appreciate what they’re saying.
I am a girly girl, hear me roar!
Getting dressed distracts me from the worry of seeing Mac again. I give my hair a little zhoosh, curling it out a bit bigger than the stylist did as per Simone’s instruction, and brush on some smokey makeup as my wine glass gets filled and refilled as if by magic.
When the five of us are ready, we head downstairs. The kids are in the living room with Clancy and Allie, and my mother, Dorothy, and Margaret are in the kitchen eating dinner. I’m not quite sure when they arrived, but I have a sneaky suspicion they wanted to see the five of us off.
Dorothy whistles as my mother grabs her phone. “Photos! I want photos.”
“Mom, this isn’t prom.” I grab my purse from the kitchen counter and check for my things while my mother ignores me and starts creative-directing a photo shoot right there in the hallway.
Katie skips to me and wraps her arms around my waist. “You look like a princess, Mommy. So pretty.”
Annddd my heart melts. I place a soft kiss on my daughter’s head. “You going to be okay tonight without me?”
My sweet daughter who just called me a pretty princess rolls her eyes and snorts. I guess that answers that.
Then, with one last look at my friends and one last goodbye kiss for my kids—and fine, a little scratch behind Mr. Fuzzles's ears—I bid goodbye to the ladies in my kitchen and head for the waiting taxi. As I slip inside, crammed in the back seat with three others, I can’t help but smile.
It’s been ages since I’ve had a night out like this. Years. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I went out with girlfriends without worrying if Kevin would be okay with the kids—or as he called it, “babysitting,” even though they’re his own children—or without him turning his nose up at such “pedestrian” activities as going for a drink. If it wasn’t a gallery opening or a poetry reading, Kevin would act like it was beneath him.
But this…this is fun. And I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.
And maybe I’ve had too much wine, but when we arrive at the Grove and tumble out of the cab, I can’t help but laugh when Simone struts up to one of the many motorcycles parked outside and poses beside it. Fiona starts snapping photos—much like my mother was doing a few minutes ago—and I finally let go of that little niggle telling me I shouldn’t be doing this.
I’m a grown woman. I’m allowed to have fun. I may be recently divorced, but I’m not dead. I can go meet a sexy man at a bar if that’s what I feel like doing. I can learn to play pool in my forties. I can have nights to myself.
And—after fantasizing about that pottery class for nearly a week—I ca
n say with complete honesty that this is exactly what I feel like doing.
7
Mac
As I tip a bottle of beer into my mouth to take a sip, my eyes drift to the door for the millionth time tonight.
She’ll show up. I know she will. Her friends wanted to come here, so she has no choice. She’ll be here.
Another sip of beer; another glance at the door.
“You got it bad,” my brother says from behind the bar. He’s taller than me by an inch and has the same thick, dark hair, usually messy from the way he runs his hands through it. Lee sees one of the regulars jerk his chin and is a good enough bartender to know that means the man wants another drink. As he pours the pint, he arches a brow at me. “Dad told me about your woman.”
“She’s not my woman.”
Yet.
Wait. No.
She’s not my woman, ever.
My father claps me on the shoulder. “Help me change a keg, will you?” He jerks his head to the storeroom where we keep the spare barrels.
I nod, slipping off my stool to follow him across the bar. My father has a bounce in his step that I haven’t seen in a long time, and I wonder if it has anything to do with the long phone calls he’s been taking in his office with a certain refined, sophisticated older woman he recently met.
The thought makes a void tear open in my chest. My father is a man of contradictions, but he’s always been predictable. Steady. He owns a bar, but doesn’t drink. He rides a motorcycle, wild as anything, then goes home to spend long hours reading by the window that overlooks his backyard. He flirts with women, charms them within moments, but he doesn’t get attached. Never has.
Not since my mother left him with us boys and never came back.
It was me, Lee, and Dad against the world. I learned early on how easy it is for women to walk away. I felt the pain of those wounds like bloody, ripped blisters on my feet. Constant, throbbing aches that got worse with time, not better, and I learned it by seeing my father drink himself to near-death, then crawl his way back to sobriety.
Dirty Little Midlife Disaster: A Motorcycle Hottie Romantic Comedy (Heart’s Cove Hotties Book 4) Page 5