Page 3 of Baby for my Dad's Best Friend

“That didn’t go like I thought it would.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He jerked his shoulders in a careless shrug, started to say something, and then we both fell silent again. The white chocolate mousse was still a perfect triangle between us, but neither of us reached for one of the long-handled spoons.

“What do we do now?” he asked, and I knew he wasn’t talking about the dessert or the bill. He was asking the Big Question. What were we going to do about the myriad ways we’d entwined our lives, the tangible threads that had bound us together even as I’d felt the desire to drift apart?

“I think…” I blinked rapidly, hardly able to believe what I was about to say. “I think I’m going to move home.”

Home was Boston, Massachusetts. Home was long, frozen winters that started in September and went clearly through April. When I left seven years ago, it was with the intention of living and dying in the California sun. Lately, though, I’d felt a longing for my hometown. The distinct accent I’d spent the first year of college shedding, the cobblestone streets of Beacon Hill, lobster rolls and Red Sox games. I even looked forward to a good old fashioned snowy winter.

Christian gave me a funny look, and I realized I was smiling.

“I’m definitely going to move home,” I decided, then and there.

Christian’s face was composed in an expression of tragic nobility. “If you love someone, let them go,” he said.

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, but it reminded me of something.

Ofsomeone.

And for the first time in years, I let myself think about Aiden Cross.

CHAPTER2

AIDEN

You’re not supposed to think about divorce on your wedding day. It’s not good form to stand up at the altar, look at the beautiful woman in a stunning white gown in front of you, and think,shit, maybe this wasn’t a good idea. You aren’t supposed to kiss her and wish you were at an airport instead of a church, about to fly off to somewhere very, very far away.

You definitely shouldn’t gaze down at her while she’s saying her vows and scan her pupils frantically for any hint that she feels the same way you do. And when you sayI do, your stomach shouldn’t feel like it’s about to fall out of your ass.

I felt every inch of how wrong my life was the day I married Shara. I’d sensed it now and then, lying next to her in bed, but I’d shoved it away. It was too fucking inconvenient. It was a hell of a lot easier to stay with the woman my family adored, the one who adored me. But the wrongness fit itself around my body like a hairshirt the day I proposed, and as the months wore on and plans finalized and deposits were paid, it grew tighter and tighter, choking me.

I should have called it off the morning of the wedding when I woke up in a cold sweat, unable to believe this was actually going to happen. Instead, I married her, and then I spent four years making her regret it.

Shara hated me by the end, and I hated myself. We weren’t alone. My little brother hadn’t called me anything more affectionate thanfucking assholein months, and this past Christmas, he and my mother went toShara’shouse.

Only my oldest, closest friend clapped me on the shoulder with anything resembling sympathy.

“You were an asshole,” Jack Davis agreed soberly, “but you learned from it.”

“You think a lesson learned always justifies the means, professor?” I asked, half-sarcastic, half-serious. Jack and I met when he was just a TA hoping for an adjunct position, but now he was a tenured professor at Boston University. Forty-eight years old to my forty-two, he was the big brother I’d never had, and his opinion was one of the few that mattered to me.

Jack shrugged and tipped back his beer. “I think your family needs to move on,” he said after he swallowed. “Your divorce has been final for a year now.”

It had actually been final for a year and a half, which meant I’d asked Shara for the divorce almost two years ago. Which meant that it was a damn good thing Jack and I only got to catch up but twice a year so this shit still smelled relatively fresh.

“Enough about me being an asshole,” I said, signaling to the bartender that I was ready for another Sam Adams. “Tell me howyou’vebeen an asshole lately. Make me feel better.”

Jack’s grin was quick and self-effacing. We both knew damn well Jack hadn’t done anything worse than cross against the light. He was a straight arrow, an all-around good guy. Happily married to his high school sweetheart, a father of three kids who didn’t hate each other like my brother and I did, and a popular professor.

“I bet on the Cubs the other day,” he said after some reflection. “They were playing the Yankees.”

I snorted, unimpressed.

Jack grinned again, then said, “Okay, how about this? I lured a friend to a bar under false pretenses.”

I raised my eyebrows, sure this was going to end in some bullshitfor a surprise partytwist.

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