Never to Love (15 page)

“Daddy!” Colton hollered as he burst through the door to my room. Thank God Juli and I had taken the time to climb under the covers before she went back to sleep.

“Shh, we don’t want to wake her,” I said tipping my head toward Juli’s spot on the side farthest from the door. The bed shifted a little as the blankets mysteriously crept over the top of the supposedly sleeping beauty’s head. “She’s really grouchy in the morning.” And horny, but no one else, especially a child, needed to know that. I wondered if Juli even knew that about herself before she stayed over the first night.

Seemed unlikely she’d woken up with a guy very often, and if she had, doing him that morning would likely break the first rule, and she had always enforced it so strictly. For people like us, defining a day as each side of midnight wasn’t practical. Most people used before and after sleep as the delimiter. I’d always loosely defined it as the greater of the duration of nakedness or twelve hours.

Regardless, I bet she’d never woken up with the same man more than once, if ever. If I had a pussy, I’d want to stick around for my dick, as well.

Not heeding my warning, Colton jumped up on the bed, jostling us around.

“Colton,” Juli said, her voice rough. “If you let me sleep twenty more minutes, I’ll give you anything you want.”

“Anything?”

“Anything. Go think about what you want, and I’ll be out in a little bit.” Without another word, Colton bounced off of the bed, slamming the door behind him as he darted from the room.

“What if he asks you for a pony?”

“If you don’t shut up and let me enjoy the twenty minutes I just bought, I’ll buy him five ponies,” she grumbled. Taking the hint, I pulled on a pair of boxers and sleep pants and went to find my son.

Colton and I were sitting at the kitchen island, digging into our Lucky Charms, by the time I heard Juli moving through the house. My spoon clattered in the bowl, splashing milk over the edges when I caught sight of her.

“What?” she asked as I gawked at her. My T-shirt and jogging shorts never looked that hot on me, and that’s really saying something.

“Nice outfit,” was all I could say.

Glancing at Colton, she walked around the counter and covered his ears. “It’s bad enough I have to take the walk of shame. I didn’t want to do it in front of him,” she whispered.

“I wasn’t complaining,” I said. She only needed to look down at my lap to realize just how fine with it I was.

Letting go of Colton’s ears, she straightened the short hairs above them with her fingers as I made my way over to the coffee machine. “I wasn’t sure how you take it,” I said, bringing the mug, sugar, and creamer over to the spot next to mine on the island.

“Black is fine, thanks.” Before I could sit down, she stole my cereal bowl and topped it off with the box sitting near Colton.

“I see how it is,” I said, grinning like an idiot as I grabbed a new bowl from the cabinet above the coffee maker and the milk from the fridge.

“So, Colton,” Juli said and then paused to take another bite of cereal. “Have you decided what you want?”

“Uh huh.” How a human being that small has enough energy to power a city block so early in the morning was beyond me. “I want you to come over tonight and watch movies with us.”

“You do realize I promised you
anything
, right?”

“Yep.”

“And all you want is for me to come over and watch movies?”

“Yes. Tonight.”

“I have to work this evening, but I’ll try to stop by for a few minutes if I finish up before your bedtime, if that’s okay with your dad, of course.”

“Please, Daddy?”

“Fine with me.” Maybe she’d stay until my bedtime.

“If I have to work too late, we’ll have to reschedule. Deal?”

“Deal.”

*

“When’s Juli coming over?”

“
If
she comes over, it will be after she finishes work. Remember?”

“Will you text her and find out what time she gets off?” he asked.

“Juli doesn’t have a regular job. She won’t know what time until she’s finished.” I wasn’t sure I liked the path this conversation was taking. Colton had spent less than two hours with her, combined, and he was already getting attached. Shit. Was I getting attached, too? “I asked her to text when she knew if she’d be able to make it or not. She hasn’t texted back yet.” Grabbing my kid around the middle, I stood and tucked him under one arm as I walked to the kitchen. “We don’t need her here to have fun,” I said to the wiggly, giggly kid I toted around as I made popcorn.

“I know, but she’s fun to look at.”

Maybe I needed to tone it down in front of his impressionable mind. “Colton, I think we need to have a chat.” I dropped him on the stool he’d sat on during breakfast. Brushing the hair out of his face, I looked him in the eye and chose my words carefully.

“No matter how a man feels about relationships, women should always be respected.” Except those who turn out to be psycho. “Juli isn’t just a pretty thing to look at. She’s an extremely intelligent person and deserves to be treated as such.”

“I know, Dad. She was really nice to me last night.” Colton had still been awake when Juli had shown up an hour before our outdoor excursion the night before. Most women would have turned around and left, but instead of whining, she watched him play Lego Star Wars on his Xbox for a while. I could tell she wanted to play too but seemed happy to serve as a consultant until it was time for the two of us to play games of an adult nature.

Colton looked around the room, as if trying to decide something, and then turned to me. “Is she your girlfriend? I asked her, but she didn’t really answer.”

“No.” Was he too young for me to tell him the cold, hard truth about the myth that was love? He was definitely too young for me to explain friends with benefits and booty calls. “We’ve been working together on a project and have become friends.”

“Why did you bring her with you to pick me up last night?”

“She was there when I got the call.”

“What were you doing?”

“Hanging out.” I had more than enough skill to mislead a child. If not, I would’ve been in deep shit when it came to business deals.

“I followed her on Twitter today,” Colton said as if just remembering.

“Aren’t you too young for that?”

“You’re old, Dad. All of my friends have it.”

“Hey, I’m not that old,” I grumbled.

“Check it out.” Pulling the phone I’d given him for his birthday from his back pocket, he unlocked it with his right thumbprint and then pulled up the app.

After a second of scrolling, Colton’s eyes bugged out of his head. “Wow! She knows Stryker?”

“Who’s Stryker?” Looking over his shoulder, I discovered the reason Juli hadn’t returned my text.

It had to be a fucking joke. Two minutes earlier, Brady fucking Johns had mentioned Juli in a tweet. As if it weren’t bad enough he was bragging about taking her out, he included a selfie of the two of them cuddled up together in the back seat of a car.

Why did I fucking care? I didn’t. Not even a little. We were both free to do whomever we wanted.

As I was fuming for absolutely no reason, another tweet showed up on Colton’s timeline–this one from Juli herself.

Julianne Griffith @Juli_Griffith – 8s

Having a hard time keeping my hands off the insanely sexy @TheBradyJohns! #DateNight #BeJealous

“No wonder she doesn’t want to be your girlfriend. Stryker’s awesome!”

“I never said she didn’t
want
to be my girlfriend, I said she wasn’t my girlfriend.”

“Do you think she’d introduce me to Stryker?”

“Not sure. Time for bed, kid.”

“But you said I could stay up a little later,” he whined.

Even based on his regular bedtime, it was early, but I was done with this conversation. Not to mention, he’d be up past bedtime no matter how early I started the process.

During his bedtime routine, he reminded me that he needed to take his antacids. Of course, he mentioned it after he’d brushed his teeth, which meant he had to start over. Starting over wouldn’t have been so bad if he wasn’t obsessed with making sure every surface in his mouth was spotless. Excellent oral hygiene would save me a fortune in dental visits over the years to come, but I often wondered if he was really concerned about his teeth or if he was a master-class staller. As much as he took after his old man, I already knew the answer.

Juli

Brady Johns was an extremely attractive man, but he wasn’t exactly my flavor that month. He was also too young for my liking. The hunky actor would, however, make a nice addition to my to-do list. Sure, we were playing it up for the cameras, including those built into our own phones, but my itch was being scratched rather nicely for the time being.

Yikes.
My musings sounded, at least to me, way too close to monogamy for comfort. Maybe it was time to think about putting an end to my temporary insanity and reinstate the rules. When I looked at Brady, I couldn’t imagine wanting more from him than what the rules allowed, so maybe he could be the catalyst to get me back on track.

What made Thomas different, anyway? The current situation with his ex was extremely messy, and with his kid around all the time, hooking up would be much less convenient. We would still work together, and maybe we could be friends, but I knew it was time to move on.

Smiling through a touch of indigestion—because even though we hadn’t eaten yet, that’s the only thing the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach could possibly be—I discreetly opened my clutch in search of my antacids.

Did Colton remember to take his medicine tonight?

Crap. Why did I care? I wasn’t his mother. I wasn’t anything to him, really. For all intents and purposes, I was just an amazingly hot chick his dad banged a few times. I didn’t even like kids. I definitely didn’t need any more drama in my life, I was surrounded by actors and had more than my fair share.

Decision made.

When we arrived at the small, exclusive restaurant, I took Brady’s arm and made sure to keep as much of my body pressed against his as possible. As planned, the young hostess escorted us to a table near, but not up against, the glass wall that composed the west side of the building.

With a sideways glance toward the booth in the corner, I caught Tate’s eye for a split second, which served as both my signal to him to begin and his acknowledgment. Trusting my clients to do their job, I wouldn’t deliberately look at them again.

Slipping off my shoe, I ran my toes up Brady’s calf, knowing the cameras had a full view of what was happening both above and beneath the table. When he leaned over the short centerpiece to whisper in my ear, just as we’d discussed, the frequency of the flashes coming from the sidewalk increased exponentially.

From years of experience, I had a good idea of what the final images would look like based on distance, lighting, and angles. Taking into account the movement of the swarm, I made a series of subtle adjustments in my posture and the angle of my chair to ensure the actual show would end up on film without diverting attention from the bait.

Even though Brady was technically doing me a favor, he got more out of our ruse than I did. All he wanted was the publicity boost of hanging out with Tate and Marina outside of work, but I needed to control the evening. No way would I let Brady’s team have too much creative freedom with the orchestrated situation.

My involvement with Brady wouldn’t seem outlandish since I’d met him before. He’d been in a movie with my friends, and he was a client of the agency. The same time, same place “coincidence” could be explained away, but I doubt anyone would ask, and if they did, it wouldn’t matter much after the deed was done. I’d much rather the press speculate about a friendship between former co-stars than the status of my clients’ relationship.

Brady turned out to be a nice guy who was as easy to talk to as he was to look at, but all I could think was that his hair was too dark and he was way too humble.

It was about an hour later when I finally let my guard down. If everything went according to schedule, Marina and Tate had left when the server came to take my dessert order. Sam, their lead body man, had a car around the back of the restaurant and had been waiting for them to sneak out through the kitchen door. A quick peek to the corner booth confirmed everything was on schedule.

When Brady and I got up to leave, I had a message from Sam confirming the mission had been a success. I didn’t want to imagine what Tate and Marina were doing if they hadn’t wanted to take the time to message me themselves.

Thankfully, when we climbed into separate cars in front of the restaurant, the paps followed Brady, giving me an easy escape.

By the time I got home, it was after eleven, and I was physically exhausted.

My brain, however, was not on the same page.

My intention had been to let the media churn overnight and see what it had settled on in the morning. The notifications on my cell had been disabled since right before I got out of the car for my “date.” Tremont had someone watching for major catastrophes around the clock, and even when I had most of the world silenced, their call would always go through.