“Dat’s a wong time. I’m big,” Emma says, her little ears not missing a word.
“You are big,” Nora says pulling Emma onto her lap. She fusses with her hair, and Emma eats up the attention.
“Are we almost done here?” Jack grumbles. “I’m bored.”
Nick and Jessa chuckle.
“Yeah, bud, we’re almost done.”
“Wait, I didn’t pay for my meal.” Nora looks over the table, trying to find her bill.
“Gray paid for you,” Nick says.
Nora straightens up. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to.”
“Jessa! I thought that was you.” A blond woman with big hair and equally large breasts walks up and squeals as she pulls Jessa into her arms for a hug. “What are you doing here?”
“We just finished having dinner. What are you doing here?”
The woman nods toward the bar. “I stopped by for a beer.”
Jessa turns to us and smiles. “Everyone, this is Carol. We work together. Carol, you’ve met my husband, Nick. This is his sister, Nora, our friend Grayson, and his three kids, Jack, Emma, and Henry.”
Something flashes in Carol’s eye when Jessa says my name. “Is this the Grayson you were telling me about?”
Jessa shifts uncomfortably and looks at Nora and me before nodding at Carol.
“You were right. I do like what I see,” Carol all but purrs.
What’s going on? I think to myself just as I remember when Nick told me Jessa had a friend at work she thought I should meet.
This must be the friend. And while she’s attractive, she’s nothing compared to the woman sitting next to me. Where Carol has on gobs of makeup that probably took her an hour to apply and smells like the perfume aisle at a department store, Nora’s face is clean and fresh, along with her smell.
With a sashay of her hips, Carol walks towar
d me. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You too.” I reach under the table and grab the diaper bag, hoping I can get the hell out of dodge before this goes where I think it’s going.
“Jessa has told me so much about you.”
“Really?” I look at Jessa. At least she looks apologetic. “What did she say?”
“That we would be great together. She suggested we go on a date.”
Nora stiffens beside me, and a strangled noise comes from her throat. It’s quiet, and I’m pretty sure only I heard it, but that noise tells me all I need to know. She was just as affected by what happened between us as I was, and we need to have a serious talk.
I fumble the bag, and Henry’s cup falls out.
“That’s a great idea,” Nick says. “I told Grayson Jessa had a friend we wanted to hook him up with, didn’t I, Gray?”
I grab the cup and shove it back into the bag, along with the toy tractor. “You sure did, but I’m not—”
“Looking for anything serious?” Carol says.
That wasn’t at all what I was going to say. I am looking for serious, just not with her.