Claim My Baby (Crescent Cove 2)

It had been so long since I’d partied. If it hadn’t been for those few years at college, I definitely wouldn’t have ended up with all my tats. Unless pinstripes were a new popular style in ink.

“Yeah, yeah. See you later.”

“Swing by the house around eight. I’m DD tonight.”

I arched a brow. “As if I’ll drink to the point of inebriation.”

“You might be surprised. See ya.”

Once he’d left, I stared at the dragon. Rather than shelving it with all the rest of the creatures, I wrote a short note on the flaps I could open easily without starting from scratch. Then I finished the piece, let Shelly know I was leaving, and headed out into the overcast afternoon. The scent of snow hung in the air, reminding me of the night Sage had told me about the baby.

What didn’t remind me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Clutching the dragon like a kid with a damn balloon, I crossed the street and dropped it off at Sage’s mailbox at the loft before retrieving my car and driving to the mall.

Voluntarily. On a Friday evening. God help me.

Despite its name, I doubted Trend Zone, with its pink neon lights in the windows, was the place for cutting-edge clothes, but a guy had to start somewhere. I grabbed a couple of pairs of ripped jeans and a few shirts sans buttons and threw them on the counter, so annoyed with the whole process that I couldn’t communicate in anything other than grunts.

What the hell was wrong with my suits anyway? I never bought off the rack. Ever.

First time for freaking everything.

I drove home, slowing down as I passed Sage’s loft like a weirdo creeper, hoping to get a glimpse. At least it was on my usual route home, so it wasn’t as if I was making a special trip.

When would she begin to show? I couldn’t remember when Ally had, and even less about Marjorie. Probably not for a few months at least. I was surprisingly eager. I hadn’t planned on any of this happening, but now that it had, I was ready for the rest of my life to begin.

I just had to figure out how to bridge the gap from where I was to where I wanted to go. And who I wanted to be with.

On impulse, I swerved the car to the curb and pried another of my origami animals out of the glove box. I’d done so many of them recently that I’d even stowed a couple in my car. I reached for a fox and took it apart enough to write another quick note on a couple of the panels. After I refolded it, I rolled down my window and motioned to one of the Flanders’s kids walking his dog, Muffin.

“Hey John, mind doing me a favor?” I whipped out my wallet. “There’s a twenty in it for you.”

He couldn’t jog over to the car fast enough. “Sure, Oliver. What do you need?”

I asked him to deliver my fox to Sage’s mailbox and he gave me an odd look, but he did it and happily pocketed his twenty. Muffin would be eating handsomely tonight.

The rest of my drive home took longer than usual, thanks to the promised snow finally arriving and making a mess of the roads. But we didn’t get enough for a snow emergency, alas, and by eight-thirty, Seth, Dare, and I were pulling into The Spinning Wheel’s back parking lot. Conversation had been stilted on the way over. I got the feeling Dare hadn’t been informed Seth’s brother was tagging along, and even my ripped jeans hadn’t identified me as one of his brethren.

Ripped jeans, for Christ’s sake. Seth had nearly choked with laughter. Still, it wasn’t enough.

We walked in, and Seth and his friend were immediately greeted as if everyone in the place had missed them. Dare too, who supposedly knew no one. I got a few side-eyes, a few chuckles, and a couple variations of “You lost, Oliver?”

I sat at our booth in the back near the pool tables and ordered a Guinness. When I finished that one, I ordered two more. Unsurprisingly, by the end of the third beer, my pensive thoughts about Sage had taken center stage and I’d forgotten all about how much I did not fit in.

“The hardest thing about moving to a new town is meeting women.”

I didn’t look up at Dare’s remark. Normally, I would assume my brother had encouraged that line of conversation to bait me into talking. Now? I was enjoying the foam on beer number four.

Why didn’t I drink more often? It definitely eased the tension in my shoulders. Made laughing so much more natural.

Oh yes, because drinking loosened my lips far too much.

“Women are all trouble. New ones, old ones.” I took a long drink. “All trouble.”

One thing drinking did not do for me? Make my style of speech more eloquent.

“Guessing that means you’re single? Or better yet, got an ex-wife somewhere? Ex-girlfriend?” Dare saluted me with his beer. “Been there. My son’s mother split when he was two. Left me a note that she couldn’t ‘hang’ anymore and was tired of not having enough money.”