The Best Man (Alpha Men 2)

Daff was in the middle of reorganizing her overstuffed closet when her phone rang. Her eyes skimmed the room, and she wondered which pile of clothes hid the clamoring device.

“Shitsticks,” she muttered as she dug through the nearby charity heap. Not there. She dived through a few more heaps: skirts, blouses, and jumpsuits—how in the hell had she managed to accumulate so many jumpsuits?—before she finally found it beneath a smaller pile of scarves. Naturally, the second she laid her hands on the damned thing, it stopped ringing, and she swore colorfully while she checked the screen to see who had messed with her cleaning mojo. Her language got even more creatively foul when she saw who the call had been from.

She had a brief moment of hesitation before jabbing at the screen to return the call.

“Hey.” He answered on the first ring, and she glared at the mess she had made of her packing system while searching for the phone.

“Why were you calling me?”

“Must you always be so rude?” he chastised, and that made her even more irritable. She hated being called out on her bad behavior. And she discovered that she hated it that much more when it was Spencer doing the calling out.

“It’s ten o’clock . . . at night.” She tacked on the last two words for emphasis, and he chuckled; the rich sound startled her and sent a wave of warmth through her.

“Yeah. I got that.”

“There is no reason to be calling me at ten p.m., Spencer.”

“I beg to differ.”

She said nothing in response to that, merely waited silently for him to elaborate. But the silence stretched for what seemed like an endless moment and she sighed.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Why the call?”

“Oh.” She could practically hear the smile in his voice, and she wondered what possible joy he got out of annoying her like this. But at the same time, she sat down on the soft sofa and folded her feet under her butt, wriggling slightly to get comfortable. “I was wondering if you’re allergic to eggs.”

“What?” The fuck? The last two words were unspoken but had to be pretty apparent in her tone of voice.

“I was thinking of making something eggy for lunch tomorrow.”

“Don’t bring me lunch tomorrow, Spencer.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s weird. I told you, I don’t understand why you’d do something like that.”

“I’m a giving kind of guy. And we can start strategizing our BM/MOH stuff.”

“What?”

“Best man, maid of honor. Apparently it’s the thing to use acronyms—MIL, FIL, BM, and so on.”

She fought back a smile; he sounded so pleased to actually know that bit of information. She toyed with the frayed edge of a silk cushion for a few moments before talking again.

“No,” she said, and he was quiet for a couple of seconds.

“No, what?”

“I don’t have an egg allergy.”

“Cool.”

“But I don’t like eggs,” she continued smugly.

“Who doesn’t like eggs?”

“I don’t.” Nobody else really knew that. Back in the sixth grade, a cute boy had offered her half of his egg-mayo sandwich, and she had accepted the hateful thing with a gracious smile before swallowing it down without even flinching. A week later, Daff and young Byron Blake had been going steady. Ugh, she winced at the memory . . . and at the thought of his name. His parents had named his sister Barrett and his younger brother Browning. Apparently back in the day, it had been all the rage to give your kids dumb alliterative names that would make them cringe when they were adults. Her own parents had also fallen prey to the unfortunate trend. Her innocent relationship with Byron had set the tone for every relationship that followed. She liked whatever her guy of the moment liked, wanted what he wanted, ate what he ate, and after years of the same, it was hard for Daff to know what her real likes and dislikes were.

Except eggs. She knew that she hated eggs, and she had relished telling Spencer that. Almost as if admitting it confirmed that she didn’t find him attractive. She had no wish to put up her usual perfect potential partner façade. It was liberating.

“Okay, no eggs,” he said easily. “Do you like mayonnaise?”

Did she? She thought about it for a moment before shrugging.

“It’s okay, I guess.”

“So what are you doing?” he asked, his voice intimate and gentle in her ear. He sounded too far removed from his usual awkward self, and it was making her very uncomfortable.

“Irrelevant,” she replied.

“But interesting.”

“Not really . . . I’m rearranging my closet.”

“I was doing some accounts.” Again, she could hear a smile in his voice, and once more she wondered what he found so amusing. This was probably the most infuriating conversation she’d ever had, nothing amusing here at all.

“And you probably want to get back to that.”

“Not really. It’s frustrating the hell out of me.”