Ash grabbed her glass of wine.
“Ash don’t…”
She flung the contents at me. Luckily she missed completely becauseshe would have made the fire way worse. But the wine somehow went right into myface. Fuck.
“Ash!” I screamed as I blindly reached for the tablecloth tosmother the fire.
She finally seemed to understand and started whacking thefront of my pants with the tablecloth as I wiped the wine out of my eyes.
Oof. It felt like I was about to barf as her handcollided with my nuts. Hard. I looked down as she continued to slap my junkwith the tablecloth.
“I’m so so sorry,” she said when the fire was finally out. “Ithink it’s okay.” She moved the burnt up flap of my dress pants to the side tosee my barely singed boxer briefs. “It feels like it’s okay. I think your pantstook the worst of it.” She patted the front of my boxers and then seemed torealize what she was doing. She froze with her hand pressed against me.
And we both just stood there. Me with wine dripping from myeyelashes and half singed off pants. The whole restaurant could see my boxersand her hand on me.
“I’m just going to…” she removed her hand from my cock and pointedover her shoulder. And then she ran away as fast as she could.
I didn’t call after her. She’d just tried to set my fucking dickon fire. This was why I didn’t tell people about Brooklyn.
Chapter 18
Sunday
All our friends were here to watch the big Giants/Eagles game.All paired up in couples. Today I was lucky to be the eleventh wheel. Eleventh.I wish I was kidding. But the games at James and Penny’s place always included allmy friends, plus Penny’s old college friends Tyler and Melissa and their significantothers. At least James and Rob’s sister, Jen, wasn’t here with Ian. Then Iwould have been the thirteenth wheel.
I’d extended the invite to Tanner but he was busy today. Somethingabout a Club Onyx emergency. I was pretty sure he was just trying to get me tooffer to come help. He’d been trying to get me to join Club Onyx for ages, butI wasn’t really interested. If that club really was about trying to find truelove, then it wasn’t the place for me. And some fake emergency wasn’t goingto get me through the doors.
So yeah, eleventh wheel. At least all the kids were here, andthat gave me some little people to hang out with. I was sitting on the floordoing a puzzle with Scarlett. She loved puzzles. And honestly she was better atthem than me. But I didn’t mind helping her.
“Uncle Matt, why is your hand blue?” She poked a splotch ofpaint by my watch that I hadn’t been able to get out.
I adjusted my watch to help hide the mark. “An accident with someblueberries.”
She giggled and stole the puzzle piece in my hand that I’dbeen holding a few seconds too long apparently. She plopped it in the rightplace and looked up at me. “Please don’t get paint on my puzzle. You can playwith Sophie’s puzzle instead. Hers has a sky so it’s okay if you get blue onit.”
That was a very good reason. But I think her actual reasoningwas that it was Sophie’s puzzle that would get ruined and not hers. Sneakylittle devil. “I’m not going to get paint on your puzzle, kiddo.”
She looked like she was scrutinizing me. “Promise?”
“Pinky promise.” I held out my pinky to her.
She wrapped her pinky around mine, we shook, and the promisewas made. For a few more minutes she seemed content, silently putting a fewmore pieces in for every one of mine. “Could you get me a snackie?” she asked.
I looked over at the coffee table that was covered in gameday snacks. All of which she could reach. What was I, her man servant? Butinstead of complaining, I just asked her what she wanted.
“Two juice boxes, please,” she said.
“Two?”
“Mhm.” She didn’t look at me as she put some more puzzlepieces in the appropriate spots.
“Why two?”
“Because I neeeeeed two.”
Whatever you want, kiddo. It wasn’t like I had to dealwith her getting all hyped up for the rest of the day. Besides, I was prettysure one of them was supposed to be for me. I got up off the floor and wanderedover to the coffee table. I’d actually been avoiding the grownups. The last thingI wanted was to talk about my disaster of a date in front of all these happycouples. Luckily no one was paying me much attention as I grabbed two juiceboxes.
I turned around and saw that Tyler’s son, Axel, had stolen myseat beside Scarlett. I sighed. Apparently the kids were starting to pair off too.Well, at least those two. Axel had always seemed smitten with Scarlett. And viceversa. I glanced over to James, who was watching his daughter and Axel playing.He had a scowl on his face. At least Scarlett hadn’t ditched him for Axel likeshe’d just ditched me. I looked at the two juice boxes in my hand, now certainone of them wasn’t for me. Scarlett had literally sent me away to fetch the twoof them a beverage. She’d conned me.
I shook my head and walked back over to them. “Your juiceboxes, madam,” I said with a slight bow.
She giggled. “Thank you.” She grabbed both and then handedone to Axel.
Ouch. I wasn’t really offended. It was actually cute. Eventhough she was a manipulative little thing. She’d probably waved him over assoon as I stood up.
“Let me know if you two need anything else,” I said.
I sat down next to Rob’s daughter, Sophie, instead. “Hey, Soph.”
She’d abandoned her puzzle. Well, kind of. She was building a3D house with the pieces instead. I lifted up a piece to help.
She grabbed my hand. “Uncle Matt, don’t. You’ll make itfall.”
I laughed. “I’m not going to make it fall, Soph. Look.” Igently placed a piece on top of her makeshift house. And the whole thing fellover. Shit. “Sorry, let me…”
