Flat-Out Sexy (17 page)

“Oh.” Nikki’s brow furrowed.

“Can I have that pie server sitting next to you, Elec?” Suzanne asked.

Tamara loved her best friend more at that moment than possibly any other. “You made pie? That’s awesome, I can’t wait to have a piece.”

“I can’t wait to have a piece of Suzanne’s pie either,” Ryder said, with a tone that made it clear he hadn’t left the subject of sex behind.

“Sure, Suzanne,” Elec said, looking like he intended to just ignore all the innuendos and brazen right through the party. He handed her the pie server.

“Did you wash your hands?” Ty asked, eyeing the server exchange.

Oh. My. God.

Elec glared at Ty. “Yes.”

Tamara could vouch that he had since she’d seen him do it post-condom removal, but if she said anything, it would be like confessing there was a reason he needed to wash his hands so she kept her lips clamped shut.

“Because you know, I’m just thinking that maybe you shouldn’t be touching the utensils …” Ty said.

Suzanne dropped the pie server, leaned clear across the table, and picked up a knife that was lying unused next to Nikki’s plate of lettuce.

“But now
you’ve
touched the pie server,” Ryder pointed out to her.

To which Suzanne turned, picked up the pie, and slammed it straight into Ryder’s face. “That’s the last pie you’re ever getting from me,” she said, sounding thoroughly satisfied.

Tamara figured maybe it was time to call the victory properly celebrated and head on home.

“Well, thanks for a lovely evening,” she said, shoving back her chair and standing, while Ty laughed hysterically and Ryder swiped chunks of apple and piecrust off his face. “Congrats again, boys, on a fabulous one-two-three finish.

“Call me,” she said to the room at large, hoping Suzanne and Elec—the two she actually wanted to contact her—would figure out she meant them.

But of course it was Nikki who answered. “I don’t have your number,” she said.

“Well, Ty has it,” Tamara said, not ever wanting to engage in any sort of phone conversation with Nikki, but not wanting to be rude either.

She gave a seething Suzanne a half-hug, then got the hell out of there.

Tamara was in her car putting the key in the ignition when her cell phone beeped to indicate a text message.

It was from Elec.

I think we’re the only two to walk away from this dinner satisfied.

Tamara laughed. He had a point. She texted him back.

I agree. ☺

She was pulling out when he responded so she paused at the bottom of the driveway and read it.

I’m glad you had a headache.

If that was the end result, she was going to be faking a lot of headaches in Elec’s presence.

CHAPTER EIGHT

BY the following Monday afternoon, Tamara didn’t need to fake a headache. She had the real thing again.

The day after the dinner party, she’d gotten a call from Petey’s school saying that he was running a fever, and by Wednesday, it had been clear he had the chicken pox. She had spent almost a week solid with a cranky, itchy kid who, while still unable to go back to school, was to the point of boredom. And now Hunter was in the fever phase, and Tamara expected pox to appear at any given second.

Tamara was exhausted, stir-crazy, and nervously eyeing the number of sick days she had left at work. Her mother-in-law had stayed with Petey three days the previous week, but she was serving jury duty this week and wasn’t going to be able to watch the kids at all. Tamara had lined up her father-in-law for watching Hunter at the end of the week, hoping Petey would be back in school by then and Hunter would be past the worst of it. But until then, she was on her own, which meant actually missing two days of administering final exams at school, and she swore if she never had to clean the tub again after yet another gooey oatmeal bath, she would die a happy woman.

Calling Elec that morning to cancel had been depressing as hell, even if he had been understanding about it. She could really, really appreciate someone cooking her dinner at the moment since she was about to OD on peanut butter and jelly. Not to mention, she could use the neck and head massage, along with whatever might happen to come after that in the form of nudity and Elec’s erection inside her.

But there was reality and there was reality. No room for anything else in her life at the moment, and while she was worn out and experiencing major cabin fever, she was grateful that she could be the one there comforting her kids and soothing their itching.

Even when they could turn whining into an art form.

“I’m bored,” Petey said, lolling around on the couch and tangling himself up in his blankets. He had six DVDs scattered around him as he was trying to make a choice for a movie, but clearly none of them appealed in the slightest. He took a sip from the water bottle she’d given him and made a face. “I want the purple juice, not the red. This is gross!”

From the other couch, Hunter made little sounds of distress in her feverish sleep, then leaned over half-asleep and threw up onto the carpet, missing the basin set out for that purpose by a solid two feet.

Tamara loved her children. She wouldn’t trade them for all of Bill Gates’s assets. She wouldn’t trade them for a perfect man, a perfect body, or eternal youth.

But was there really anything so wrong with mourning the loss of an hour of rip-roarin’, boot stompin’ good sex with a hot race car driver?

She didn’t think so.

“ARE you even listening to me?” Eve asked Elec impatiently.

“Not really,” he told her in all honesty, forcing himself to focus on his sister across the table.

His brother Evan laughed and took a swallow of his beer. “Nobody listens to you,” he told Eve.

She stuck her tongue out at both of them.

Evan threw a balled-up paper napkin at her.

Their mother put down her salad fork and gave them a once-over with a stern look. “You know, at some point in my life, thirty years after becoming a mother, I thought maybe my children would actually stop behaving like children and start behaving like adults.”

“He started it,” Eve said, pointing to Elec.

“What did I do?” He’d only been half paying attention, too busy mourning the loss of his date with Tamara. What could he have done?

“You’re not paying attention. This isn’t chitchat. It’s a business meeting to discuss your schedule for next week at Pocono.” Eve sipped her soda. “You two fail to appreciate that I rep both of you. Double the work. I need you to cooperate.” She tapped the schedule on hard copy she had handed Elec. “Do you have any questions?”

He glanced over it. It was all standard appearances, and his sister was a master at booking him for sponsor events and interviews around meetings with his team, engine checks, and practice runs. “No. Looks good. Thanks, Eve.”

“You’re welcome.” She turned to Evan. “What about you?”

Evan was making a face at his paper. “I don’t want to go to this party on the fifth,” he said. “I have plans that night.”

“So cancel.”

“I don’t want to cancel.”

They descended into an argument and Elec zoned out. He felt really bad that Tamara was stuck in the house with a couple of sick kids. She had sounded tired when she’d called him and said her son had been sick almost a whole week with the chicken pox. He wanted to do something for her, but he didn’t know what.

His mother touched his knee. “What’s got you so preoccupied?” she asked him, her expression curious.

His siblings were still bantering on the opposite side of the table, so Elec asked his mother in a low voice, “Is it hard to be at home with a couple of kids who have the chicken pox?”

Though the question clearly startled her, she didn’t hesitate. “Oh, Lord, yes. It’s like hell on earth. Everyone’s scratching and whiny and oozing. The three of you fell one right after the other with it, so all told, it was three weeks of sick kids. Why do you ask?”

“A, uh, friend of mine is at home with her two kids who have the pox, and she’s going on a week stuck in the house. I was wondering if maybe there was something I could do to help her.”

“Where is her husband?” his mother asked baldly. “He could be giving her a break.”

“He’s dead.”

His mother lost her wariness. “Oh, my. Poor thing.”

“Her in-laws seem to be helpful, but I’m guessing it’s not the same thing as having a husband in the house.” Elec had been thinking about that a lot, about how much responsibility Tamara really did have on her shoulders. It was no wonder she had hesitated to go out with him. Between both of their insane schedules, how often were they really going to see each other?

But Elec figured once a week was a hell of a lot better than nothing, though this week they weren’t even going to get that.

“No, it’s not the same. What kind of friend is she, Elec?” His mother was studying him in a way that made him uncomfortable.

He just stared back at her.

His mother smiled. “My little eyeball. So she’s
that
kind of friend, huh? I get it.”

Elec cleared his throat. “We had plans to go to dinner tonight, you know, without the kids, and I feel bad. She sounds exhausted. So I was wondering if maybe there was something I could do to help her out, you know what I mean?” He didn’t know what he meant exactly, but his mother must have understood what he was getting at because she nodded.

“I’m sure she would appreciate that. Why don’t you drop off some dinner for her? And maybe get a little something for the kids. They get bored with the chicken pox because after the first two days they don’t feel sick, so a new book or toy goes a long way.”

“Really? You think that it would be okay to go over there?” Elec had been pondering doing that very thing since Tamara had called, but he had talked himself out of it.

“Of course. She’s got to be desperate for company, and giving her kids a distraction will be totally appreciated. And I bet she’s sick to death of eating soup and Jell-O for every meal.”

“So I should bring her dinner?” Elec sat back in his chair, ignoring his own lunch. He wanted to do that for Tamara. She didn’t have it easy being a single parent, and he liked her, damn it. He wanted to give her a break, and he wanted to see her.

“Absolutely.” His mother smiled and said, “You’re such a good boy, Elec.”

He rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Mom.”

“But I have a serious question for you. How do you feel about dating a woman who has children already and no father? Are you sure you want to take that on?”

“We’re just seeing each other casually. It’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah, but every relationship starts out casually then grows into something more. Are you okay with the possibility of having a hand in raising another man’s children?”

Since it was the only way he was ever going to raise children, either through stepchildren or adoption, he was going to have to be okay with it. He had come to terms with not having his own kids for the most part. But he had to admit he wanted children in his life in some capacity or another. He liked kids, and enjoyed their energy and sense of wonder.

“I’m very okay with it, Mom. But let’s not go jumping ahead, alright?” Sometimes, in the back of his mind, he’d done some jumping in the past week or so, but he tried to ignore it. That was crazy talk and he knew it.

“Okay, fine, I just wanted to make sure you had thought this all through. I think this woman is lucky to have you around. But just make sure you’re still planning to give me my own grandbabies someday.”

Ouch.

His mother smiled at him, smoothing down her sleek, brown bob haircut, with no idea that she had just stabbed him in the heart.

So maybe he still wasn’t totally okay with it. But it was the way it was. And he had never told his mother the truth. At eighteen it hadn’t seemed like a conversation he’d wanted to have with her, and in the meantime, it had just never come up.

Eve, the only one who knew the truth, had heard their mother and she shot him a look of sympathy. “Elec’s too smart to have any rug rats.”

“Good plan,” Evan told him. “I’m not having kids either. Too much crying and drooling and crapping.”

Their mother swatted Evan on the arm. “Those are not good reasons not to have children. What if I had said I wasn’t going to have you because you were going to fill your diaper one too many times?”

Elec laughed as Evan made a face.

Then their mother went for the jugular. “I’ve gotten so much joy from the three of you that I would have changed a thousand more diapers to have you in my life.”

His brother put up his hand. “Alright, point made. But I guess I’m saying I’m not ready for kids right now, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”

Elec wondered if he would feel the same way if he knew that he
could
have kids. While he’d always loved kids, chances were he would have wanted to wait until thirty or so himself if his boys could still swim. Strange that knowing he couldn’t have offspring ever made him ache for them earlier than he probably would have.