The Brooklyn Book Boyfriends: a collection

by Kayley Loring

  “Uh huh. So Nina’s at home with the baby all day?”

  “Yeah. I go home or we meet for lunch whenever I can. I’d just rather be at home with them when I don’t have to go out.”

  “Do you think perhaps that your wife might want to go out without the baby sometimes?”

  “I mean…yeah. Sure.”

  “Since she’s at home with the baby all day. Every day.”

  “She doesn’t complain about it or anything. She goes out with her girlfriends sometimes and I look after the baby.”

  “Do you get much time alone, just you and your wife?”

  “When the baby’s sleeping. We still have sex. Like, a lot. That’s not a problem.”

  “That’s wonderful. I just wonder if maybe Nina would appreciate being out of the house. With you. So you can enjoy the world as a husband and wife again for a bit.”

  Shit.

  I’m an asshat.

  “Okay. Yeah, I’ll do that. But what does that have to do with the separation anxiety?”

  “Well, I’m thinking maybe if you focus on staying busy with your wife when you aren’t with your daughter, you might not have the anxiety about Joni. As long as you plan ahead and make arrangements for someone responsible, someone you trust, to look after Joni while you have a date night…maybe –”

  “But what if Joni freaks out?”

  “Have you not left her with a babysitter yet?”

  I pretend to think about it and count out the times we left Joni with a babysitter in the past seven months, but the answer is no. Nope. Not yet. “Well, there were times in the first few months where my dad and Sharon, or just Sharon would come over so Nina and I could take a nap. You know. But we were always around. And when I was at work, Nina’s had friends over and a couple of times her parents were staying in town. And anyway, they’d look after Joni so Nina could do whatever. Sleep or shower.”

  “Okay. And did Joni seem upset when she was with these other people?”

  I clear my throat. “No. But she was really little. We’ve spent a lot more time with her since then.”

  “The thing is, I think that what will be important to Joni is the understanding that when you and Nina aren’t around, that you will eventually come back. Always. And perhaps it would be better to start teaching her this sooner, rather than later. So she gets used to the routine of being with other people and then having you return. And eventually, of being on her own in the world, and knowing that she can always return to you. If you start easing her—and yourself—into spending time apart from each other now, then it will be less likely that Joni will suffer from separation anxiety when she’s old enough for daycare.”

  “You make it sound so easy,” I mumble.

  “Well, nothing is ever easy when there’s a baby involved. But it doesn’t have to be difficult either. Every parent experiences anxiety about their children, Vince. It doesn’t go away, but it will get better over time.”

  “All in good time, huh?”

  “All in good time.”

  “Why do you look so nervous? Get outta here, will ya?” My dad and Sharon came over half an hour ago, and my dad has been telling me to get outta here ever since they showed up.

  Nina’s been getting ready for the past hour, and I’ve been running through a “goodbye ritual” in my head. Yeah. We researched how to leave a baby with a caregiver, and you’re supposed to keep it short and sweet. A reassuring little ritual—just tell the kid you’re leaving and go, without making a big deal about it.

  I call out to Nina, to let her know I’ll meet her out front and that we have to go now if we want to get to the restaurant on time. And then I get on my knees, on the floor, where Joni’s playing with her activity cube. And I try to get her attention by saying her name about a hundred times. But she’s really into her activity cube and I don’t want to take it away from her in case she starts crying. I ignore my dad, who’s laughing at me, and I just give my daughter a kiss on the head and say into her ear, “Okay, baby. Your mom and I are going out for two hours and you’re gonna stay here with your grandpa and Sharon and then your mom and I are coming back. We’re always gonna come back for you.” She keeps pressing the big buttons and laughing.

  So I stand up. “Okay, see you soon.” I wave at Joni and Sharon, flip my dad the bird, and go out the door without looking back.

  I told Nina not to get too dressed up because I wanted to surprise her by taking her to the restaurant on my motorcycle. Neither of us has ridden this thing since we found out Nina was pregnant. But by the time I pull up in front of our building on the bike, she’s waiting for me on the sidewalk and she is so fucking beautiful I don’t just forget to worry about Joni, I forget to breathe. She’s wearing a loose-fitting skirt and that flimsy little pink T-shirt she wore when we went to the resort at Lake George. Only she fills it out more now, and Goddamn. My vixen. Wearing an easy-access outfit to make me hard. My sweet little devil.

  I pull off my helmet so I can watch her saunter over. She’s grinning and devouring me with her eyes and I already know we aren’t going to make it to the restaurant for dinner, just as surely as I know I’m going to be attracted to this woman for as long as I live. I will take her wherever she wants to go, whenever she wants to go there, but right now I can tell we’re both trying to decide if we should just get a hotel room for a couple of hours or duck into the nearest alley.

  “Should I call the restaurant to cancel the reservation?” she asks, at the same time I do.

  “And here I thought maybe you wanted to go someplace in public where we could talk and get to know each other again, without the potential for engaging in sexual activity.”

  She leans in to say directly into my ear, “That place doesn’t exist in my world, darlin’.” And then she captures my earlobe between her teeth and—Dr. Glass you are a fucking genius and worth every penny.

  I can’t even remember the last time we came to Bitters. I can barely remember my own name right now. I’m just glad they still have these booths that offer a ton of privacy, because my wife won’t stop kissing me and my hands won’t stop sneaking up under her flimsy T-shirt and skirt.

  “I am so motherflorking happy to be out of the house,” she squeals, as she squeezes my thigh. “Should we order food?”

  “Did we not eat yet?”

  “Nope. Do you think Joni’s okay? Should we call to check on her?”

  “Who?”

  My wife and the mother of my child punches me in the bicep for that, and rightly so.

  “I’m sure she’s fine. Everything’s fine. Everything is always going to be fine.”

  “You’re just saying that because your hand is on my boob.”

  “You are absolutely right, Mrs. Devlin.” I sweep my thumb across her nipple and watch her eyelashes flutter, her swollen lips part. “You are always, always right.”

  “You remember the first time you brought me here?” she asks.

  “I think about that first night all the time.”

  “Do you really? Because I do too. That whole first summer.”

  “Remember how hesitant you were to date me?”

  “I don’t remember that at all. I’m pretty sure I was the one who had to convince you to see me again.”

  “Whatever you say, baby.” She’s mine and we’re still in love and she has always stayed true to herself and her hand on my thigh is always right.

  “Hey…” She pulls away from me and bites her lip. Even in the dim light I can tell she’s blushing, and I cannot wait to hear what she says next. “This might be a terrible idea, but…do you want to meet me in the ladies’ room in a minute?”

  “Oh. Hell. Yes.”

  Author’s Notes

  Quote from the song “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell from the album Blue.

  You can listen to this song on a rather eclectic Spotify playlist of songs that I listened to while writing Rebound with Me HERE.

  Quote from The minute I heard my first love story… by Rumi
, translation by Coleman Barks in The Essential Rumi. Since this poem isn’t in the public domain, I can’t include the whole of it in my book, but you can find this perfect tiny poem all over the Internet and on my Pinterest board HERE.

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  Also by Kayley Loring

  All of my books are available in Kindle Unlimited!

  SLEEPER (Shane and Willa’s story) – available in audio

  CHARMER (Nico and Kat’s story) – coming to audio

  (The New York/Brooklyn standalones)

  REBOUND WITH ME (Vince and Nina) - coming to audio summer 2020

  COME BACK TO BED (Matt and Bernadette) - available in audio

  TONIGHT YOU’RE MINE (Chase and Aimee) - available in audio

  THE PLUS ONES (Keaton and Roxy) - available in audio

  BACK FOR MORE (Wes and Lily) – available in audio

  HELLO DARLING (Evan and Stella) – coming to audio summer 2020

  SEXY NERD (John and Olivia)

  EVERY INCH OF YOU (Brad and Vivian)

  The Work Less/Play More series of standalones

  Come Back to Bed

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019, 2020 by Kayley Loring

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Kari March Designs

  Proofreading by Jenny Rarden

  1

  Bernadette

  FROM: DOLLY KEMP

  TO: BERNADETTE FARMER

  Bernadette my dear—greetings from Prague! I think you would love it and be so inspired here. There is art everywhere, and I want to buy all of it. Everything is gorgeous and delicious (especially the beer and sausages). Marty and I are having a ball.

  Speaking of sausages and balls—I’m sure you have enjoyed not hearing us fooling around next door for the past three months. LOL Numerous guests at five-star hotels all over Europe have not been so lucky.

  I hope you are well, and I have a favor to ask of you.

  My lawyer nephew needs a place to stay for a while and will be living in my apartment until he finds one of his own.

  His name is Matt McGovern, Esq.

  He is my younger sister’s son.

  Matt spends most of his life at work or out on the town, so you probably won’t even know he’s there.

  Can I trouble you to give him your spare key for my flat tonight? I know you are a private person, so I didn’t give him your phone number. I told him to buzz you at 4A around 7:30 p.m. If that is inconvenient for you, you can email him at: iammattmcgovernsemail@gmail.com to plan a better time.

  You have similar personal email addresses—isn’t that cute?!

  Thank you for taking care of my plants.

  I still don’t know when we will be returning, but you may continue to pay rent at the discounted rate until then.

  xx DK

  Well, crap.

  It was fun having the floor to myself while it lasted.

  And by “fun,” I mean blissfully uneventful and quiet.

  Dolly Kemp is my landlady and neighbor. She owns both condos on the fourth floor of the Upper West Side townhouse we live in, sublets the smaller one to me, and charges me less when she’s out of town because I water her plants while she’s gone. She is a retired investment banker and an enthusiastic art collector, a senior citizen who has a far racier wardrobe and love life than I do. Since I don’t know exactly how old she or her younger sister are, her nephew could be anywhere from midtwenties to early fifties.

  Here’s hoping he’s a shy fifty-something intellectual property lawyer who listens to classical music and does crossword puzzles to relax when he’s at home. I don’t know if that person actually exists anywhere on earth in the twenty-first century, but that’s my idea of a good neighbor. Polite, quiet, and almost never at home.

  I myself am a twenty-seven-year-old homebody who deeply values what little time I get to spend in my apartment. Being the well-paid executive personal assistant to a very successful (and moderately sexy—okay super sexy) recently divorced artist means that I spend most of my days doing whatever he needs me to do for him, whenever and wherever he wants me to do it. And no, none of those things ever involve sex. Unfortunately. Unless you count the time he asked me to pose partially nude for a painting, but I may as well have been a naked bowl of fruit as far as he was concerned. A really demure, secretly horny bowl of fruit.

  Being a homebody in Manhattan is like being a vegetarian in a meat market, but when your life revolves around another person in the way that mine does, in a city of eight and a half million other people, you really need that room of your own. Even when you spend most of your time in that room thinking about your boss. Even when you spend most of your time in any room thinking about your boss.

  Today, world-renowned artist Sebastian Smith has tasked me with stretching canvases, ordering paints from Japan and brushes from China, responding to interview requests, and updating his website, all of which I have been able to do from his four-bedroom converted loft in Tribeca. He himself has spent the day driving around the Hudson Valley for inspiration, and while I’d always prefer to see his face and hear his voice, it does make for an easier work day. I should easily make it home before seven thirty, so I shoot Dolly an email saying just that.

  I get off at the 79th Street station instead of 86th because the sun hasn’t gone down yet and it’s a gorgeous mid-March early evening after a full week of rain. I always enjoy people-watching as I walk up Broadway, but it’s especially fun now that New Yorkers are starting to show some skin again.

  I really love my Upper West Side neighborhood. I am the only single under-thirty-year-old in the art world that I know of who chooses to live up here. It’s old-school—a little mellower than downtown—and with its relatively unpretentious residents and neighborhood feel, it’s the closest I can get to my home state of Vermont without leaving Manhattan. And okay, yes, I also moved here because of You’ve Got Mail, and I hear “Dreams” by The Cranberries in my head whenever I walk around here. Don’t judge me. Call me crazy, but at this point in my life I’d rather be safe and living in Nora Ephron’s charming but not-at-all-cool late-90s fantasy world than do ecstasy at an after-party where the DJ is some model with a famous parent and a bottle of Heineken costs more than the Uber ride it took to get there.

  I cut across to 85th to check out the floral offerings at my local green grocer, but my attention is diverted by the cutest damn Boston Terrier I’ve ever seen. She has a pink collar, is staring right at me, and I swear it’s love at first sight for both of us.

  I don’t want to brag or anything, but dogs love me. Like, every dog I’ve ever met. To dogs, I’m basically a five-foot-seven jerky treat with a voice and hands. I march straight over to that black and white beauty and drop t
o my knees. She keeps licking her chops as she stands up on her hind legs, resting her paws on my thighs and hopping up and down.

  “Ooooh you’re so cute! Look at that face! Look at that sweet, sweet little face! Ohhhh, what’s your name, happy girl? You’re a pretty girl, aren’t you? What’s your name?” I turn my question to her owner. “What’s her name?”

  I stand up as my eyes follow the leash up to the big strong hand that’s holding it and the man in the suit and coat who is attached to the hand. He is so ludicrously gorgeous, I just burst out laughing. This must happen often when people look at him, because his facial expression betrays absolutely no sense of surprise. In fact, he is completely stone-faced. Like a handsome statue. A handsome statue in a modern-cut suit and slim tie and trench coat that is probably worth more than everything I own, who is talking on the phone through his earbuds and has no intention of answering my very important question about his dog’s name. He just stares at me while continuing to engage in his phone conversation about contracts and clauses or something.

  Whatever!

  Seriously though—what is he thinking? Who just stands around outside a grocery store looking that handsome, unless… I look around for a camera crew. Am I interrupting a photo shoot or a movie set? Nope. Unless it’s a hidden-camera reality show about people reacting to cute dogs and annoyingly attractive strangers.