Lay It Down: Bastards MC Series Boxed Set (2 page)

I didn’t know what to say. Matt did touch me often. At work we both listened to music on our headphones, so it was easier to touch his shoulder to get his attention. We were comfortable with each other. And he was nosey, one of the nosiest people I knew. He needed to know what was going on at all times and most likely wanted to know what was funny.

I would have pointed out each of these arguments, but the thing that I was most concerned with at that point was Will’s lack of emotion. “And none of that bothers you?”

Will gave me a small smile. “Honey, how Matt feels about you is really the least of our issues, don’t you think?”

He’d been right of course. Matt and his overly familiar tendencies toward me were the smallest problem Will and I had. Now, a few weeks after the picnic, our kids were spending the summer with their grandparents and I was living in a hotel room five miles from work. Trying to save our marriage wasn’t even the biggest problem Will and I had; figuring out if it was worth saving was.

“Hey, where’d you go?”

I shook off the memories and realized we were pulling into the restaurant. “I thought breakfast was a distraction for me.”

Matty nudged my left arm. “In order to do that, you have to actually talk to me.”

I smiled over the roof of his car as I got out. “Wait. Are you actually complaining about me being quiet?”

He stuck out his tongue, making me laugh. “There’s a first time for everything.” He opened the restaurant door for me, putting his hand on my lower back as we walked into Denny’s.

The woman who greeted us made no attempt to hide her distasteful ogling. I watched her eyes move slowly over Matt, all six feet two inches of him, from his head to his feet and back to his face. Meeting his eyes, she gave him a flirty grin before showing us to our table. Her eyes followed him again as he slid into the booth. “Your waitress will be here in a few minutes. Can I get you anything?” Her tone implied she wanted to give him something—like her phone number.

I moved into the booth across from him, knocking my knee into his.

He raised an eyebrow in my direction but answered the waitress, “I’ll take a coffee, black. And we’ll both have iced water—hers with lemon.”

The girl looked at me as if she’d just realized I was there.

I smiled at her, moving farther back in the booth to avoid the legs invading my side of the table. “Thanks.”

A leg bumped mine suddenly, and I turned away from the girl to glare at my friend.

His head was buried in the menu, so I bumped him back. “Get those knobby things on your side of the table.”

“Listen, shrimp, if you don’t need the space, you can share.”

“Shrimp? Really? And I do need the room!” I wanted to kick him but settled for another knee nudge.

He moved the menu enough for me to see his smile, but he didn’t budge his legs. I didn’t know why he was reading the menu; we both ordered the same thing every time we came. A few minutes later, the waitress brought his coffee and our waters and took our order. I was debating distracting small-talk topics when he met my eyes.

“Taylor…” He broke off as though he didn’t know what to say. His brow creased, and I could tell he was searching for the right words. He sighed. “Taylor is a miserable witch sometimes.”

I almost choked on my water. Never, not one time, had he ever said anything like that about her. He’d complain about her spending habits, her criticisms of him, and her complete lack of knowledge about kids. But never had he laid down a blanket statement. After he complained, he would defend her and talk of all her “redeeming” qualities. Blah, blah, blah.

“Not one word.” His look told me I’d regret not keeping silent. “She wants to have a baby, says”—his voice got high, mimicking Taylor’s—“that it will fix all our problems.” He shook his head, lowering his voice back to normal. “Because bringing a baby into our house will fix everything.” The anger had taken over, and his face was contorted as if in pain. “I’m thirty-six for Christ’s sake. I don’t want to start over!”

I couldn’t keep quiet. “She hates kids!”

“Yep.” He glared out the window. “She said a baby would ruin her body, so she made me get fixed, remember?”

How could I forget? Taylor was supposed to pick him up after the surgery but had “lost track of time” and couldn’t make it, so I took him home and kept him supplied with a steady stream of frozen peas and Advil while watching the first season of
Sons of Anarchy
. Good times, really.

“Now she wants me to get it reversed so we can have our own baby.”

I didn’t know what to say. I had no words of inspiration. Hell, I couldn’t save my own marriage, so what wisdom could I deliver to help him? “I’m sorry.” It wasn’t much, but I could offer empathy. I had so many questions though. “Why now?”

He looked at me. “She wants a ‘grand gesture.’” His hands made air quotes around the words. “A real commitment. Something to prove I’m going to stay with her, even with all our problems.” He sighed. “I think I’m going to ask her to marry me.”

There was so much to say, but the words wouldn’t form. I searched his face, looking for his telltale smirk or a wink that would prove he was just kidding. Why would he want to marry her? Okay, so I knew there were probably thousands of reasons, but I was positive that I could easily rebut most of them. And I had plenty more why he shouldn’t. One was more glaringly obvious than the rest.

“Have you told Sam you want to marry her?” If anyone disliked that woman more than I did, it was Matt’s son.

“Sam’s nine, Jo. He still wants his parents to get back together.”

I didn’t blame the kid; I did, too.

“When I talked to Becky, she said I should ask you what you thought.”

“You already talked to Becky?”

“Of course I did." He looked at me as if that was the most absurd question he'd ever been asked. "If she ever decides to do something stupid, like move that loser in, I know she would talk it over with me first.”

“Loser? Did she and the vet break up?”

He grinned, showing perfectly aligned white teeth. “Nope.”

I grinned back. “Some habits are just hard to break, huh?”

I had adored Becky when they were married—but just like every other possession in a divorce, friends were split up evenly. Matty was the lucky party who got me. I still spoke to her every time I saw her, but it wasn’t the same. She was more reserved, and it was very clear she knew my loyalty was with her ex.

The last time I’d seen her, she’d been out with her long-time partner. The “loser” vet was anything but. He owned his own practice, was known for both his dedication to animals and for having a big heart, was easy on the eyes, and most importantly, adored Sam. I’d liked him instantly. But Matt would find something wrong with a saint if that saint was dating his ex-wife.

“Whatever.” He rolled his eyes. “What do you think?”

“About the vet? Or about you getting married?”

He tipped his head slightly, giving me an annoyed look.

“I think getting married because you want your girlfriend to feel secure or because you want to prove you’re not going to leave her when the next floozy comes along is just plain stupid. It’s something you would have done in your twenties.”

He graciously ignored my floozy comment. “I’m not getting married tomorrow. I’m talking about getting engaged. That way she’ll know that I’m committed, but we’ll have plenty of time to work out the kinks.”

Kinks? Hmmm… it sounded as though they had more than a few kinks to work out, but I was really the last person to judge. The waitress appeared at our table, handed out our food, and after making sure we were all set, left just as quietly as she’d come.

I watched her go, making sure she was far enough away to not hear us. “I didn’t know you were having trouble.”

He dove into his eggs; I was sure he was going to ignore me.

“It’s over stupid shit.” He took another bite. “You piss her off.”

“Me?” I almost dropped my fork. “What in the hell did I do this time?”

He chuckled. “Well, we piss her off. We spend too much time together and she gets insecure.”

Ah. Yep. That made sense. Same old argument. “Hmmm. I thought her attitude had changed now that we don’t do the Saturday morning stuff.”

Our Saturday mornings used to be spent at the local Y. While the kids had swim lessons or a baseball clinic, the two of us would use the cardio room, go for a run, or sit and have coffee. He’d brought Taylor once. After that, Becky had started to bring Sam, even on his dad's weekends. Matty might pick him up, but Taylor was always with him. Her argument had been that she’d felt like a third wheel, which she was, and that I got to see him enough.

“Yeah, well, now she says I’m in a bad mood every weekend.”

“That’s my fault how?”

He shrugged. “It’s the only two days of the week I don’t see you.”

That made no sense. I frowned into my omelet. “We talk all the time on the weekends though.”

“Yeah. She doesn’t know that.”

I laughed at him. “No wonder I piss her off. I’m your dirty little secret.” I was teasing, my tone light.

His head snapped up, sky-blue eyes finding mine. “You are.” He had a serious look, his usual crooked smile and twitching lip gone. He looked almost sad. I didn’t see this side of him very often, and I couldn’t look away. "Well, one of them anyway." He gave me his killer smile.

He must not have shaved last night; a dark five o’clock shadow ran along the sides of his square jawbone and chin. There was a small rectangle of thicker, darker hair below the middle of his bottom lip. His heart-shaped lips weren’t full enough to be feminine, but they were just pouty enough to make most women ache to kiss him. The indent above his upper lip was pronounced and led to a perfectly centered, long, thin nose. When you looked at him from the side, you could see a little bump right between his eyes where his nose had been broken when he was younger.

From my view though, all I could see was a straight line to his eyes. Black lashes that would make any woman jealous surrounded hooded eyes. Dark thick eyebrows topped each bright blue eye; those eyes were peering at me now. The left side of his forehead creased slightly as he watched me study him.

He looked like a Greek God. A Greek God I wanted to do unholy things with. The thought came out of nowhere, and my heart pounded as I realized exactly what I was thinking. I looked at the table, hoping he couldn't see my thoughts. This was Matt! I could deny it all I wanted, but the truth was that I was extremely attracted to him. I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to figure out if I had always been attracted to him. He was pretty, sure, but he was my person. The one I could always count on and trusted more than anyone. Wow. I needed more sleep. When I glanced back up, he was still looking at me with a concerned look.

“You really are beautiful.”
Awesome. Open mouth, insert foot.
But it was the first thought I’d had.

The lips moved into his crooked smile. “I know.” His voice was husky, and for a second, all I could focus on was his smile. He laughed, breaking the spell. “Where’d that come from?”

I shook my head.

“I think your ability to say whatever is on your mind is my favorite thing about you, Josephine.” He grinned again, shaking his head. “It’s good genetics, Joes, that’s all.” He ran his hand down his cheek, rubbing his chin. “Poor Sam.”

I raised an eyebrow. Poor Sam? Other than having his mom’s brown eyes and dimples, Sam was the spitting image of his dad.

Matty nodded. “It’s hard to be this pretty. It’s a ton of work to maintain.” He was joking, but I knew for a fact how much effort he put into staying fit. “Plus, he doesn’t have a Jo in his corner to talk him through everything. How does one survive without a Jo?”

Yep. He always knew just what to say, the bastard. I was as bad as the other women he had eating out of his hands. “Do you love her?”

He took the last bite of his egg, nodding. “Yeah, I do.”

“What about a promise ring?”

His eyebrows raised, and he gave me his smirk. “I’m an adult, not a teenager who doesn’t want his girlfriend sleeping around.”

I rolled my eyes, but he had a point. Will had been right; who was I to say that someone Matty loved wasn’t good enough? “If you love her, and really want to marry her, and it isn’t for some other reason, then you should ask her.”
Go ahead. Give her the validation she clearly needs.

He beamed at me. “You really are the best friend ever.” His knee bumped mine once again, this time moving away from my side of the table.

2

The rain had disappeared by the time I left work, but my mood had gotten worse. I couldn’t shake it off—I wasn’t sure I wanted to. It didn’t bother me if I snapped at everyone who got within a two-foot radius. My head was pounding from lack of sleep, lack of caffeine, or too much of Matty’s obnoxiousness; whatever the culprit, ibuprofen wasn’t touching it. I needed to go home and sleep.
Home.