Page 78 of The Plus Ones
I polish off the last of my rum happy juice before I’m capable of saying, “I want to do a lot of things with you too. But I want to know more about you first.”
He smiles and squeezes my hand. “Thank you.”
“Oh God, don’t thank me.”
“It means a lot to me. More than you know.”
The bartender brings our drinks over himself. “Anything else for the lovers? They will be closing down the kitchen very soon.”
“What do you want, lover?” Keaton asks me with a smile and a wink.
Oh God, I want to sit on your lap and kiss you and never stop.
I want to make up for so much lost time with you.
I want you to know that I’m not really a dick, because now I know for a fact that you are not one.
“I’m good” is all I say to him. “Thank you,” I say to the bartender.
After he’s had a few sips of his second Old Fashioned, while still holding my hand across the table, Keaton exhales loudly and says, “My mom—Cynthia Harrington Bridges—as I mentioned, is a nice lady. She’s not exactly maternal, but she always means well, and she was just raised to be a good wife and daughter more than anything, I think. She likes to give me things. Gifts. That’s her way of showing me she cares. Always has been. My dad—William Bridges—is a self-made man. My mom comes from money, and my dad made his first million by the time he was twenty-two. He’s an investor. He really is like Richard Gere inPretty Woman. He buys companies in hostile takeovers and then breaks them down to sell for a profit. He’s not a bad guy. He’s even a pretty good person, I’d say. He’s just not a great father. I never resented him for it, I just used to want his approval so much, it was…exhausting.”
“And you don’t anymore?”
He shakes his head thoughtfully while twirling his glass again. “I’m not as rich as he is, but he would always tell me how much money he had made by the time he was thirty, like it was the measure by which he judged all men. So by the time I turned thirty and I realized that I had made as much money as he had by the time he was thirty, I realized it wasn’t that big of a deal. And I kinda felt bad for him. Because I have what he doesn’t have and probably never will. I have good friends. Great ones.”
That’s when I finally lift my ass up from my chair and lean over the table to kiss him on the mouth.
Not kissing this man is no longer an option.
I kiss him until I’ve taken his breath away and then given it back to him.
I sit back down and watch him rub his lips together, savoring the taste of me and my rum and pineapple-laced lip gloss.
“Go on,” I say.
His dimple makes a welcome appearance as he tries to speak again. “Umm… What was I saying?”
“You have good friends. Great ones.”
“I do. And I’d say that I’m a lot closer to Chase’s parents now. Have been for years, really.”
“Graziella and Sean?” I say, smiling. Because no one can think about those two wonderful people without smiling. “I love them. I love their restaurant. I haven’t seen them since New Year’s Eve.” I’m hit with a pang of regret when I think about how hard I was trying to avoid him that night. I left before he showed up. What if I’d stayed? Would we have had a midnight kiss? Would we be a real couple by now?
“We should have dinner at their restaurant together sometime,” he says. “It would blow their minds.”
It would blow my mind too. I can’t quite picture being with Keaton in Brooklyn yet. But I’m willing to.
The next question rushes out to greet him before I can stop it. “Do you want kids?”
“Hell yeah,” he says without hesitating. “A brood. Or half a brood, I don’t know. How big is a brood? I want at least three.”
That revelation punches me right in the ovaries. “Three, huh?”
“I just want to be a better dad than mine was, and I’m afraid I’ll screw things up with the first one.”
I can’t help but laugh at that. “So—what? The firstborn is just a screwed-up guinea pig? That’s not fair. Although I am slightly more awesome than my brother is, so you have a point.”
“Are you saying you think three is too many?”
