Fate Interrupted (13 page)

Dean smiled seeing
Evy having a good time with Carrie. It was important she like his friends and
they like her. She looked brilliant in the sun and he wondered what they were
talking about.

“What the hell,
man?” Shaun said with a quick laugh, pulling him from his thoughts. “Do you two
ever stop eye fucking each other? Geez, there are kids around.”

Dean laughed and
took a drink from his bottle of beer.

Shaun stood over
the grill and rubbed his bare belly, watching his daughters playing with their soda-fueled
friends, spinning about the place like wound up tops. Off to the side of the
yard, a clown stretched a brown balloon into a dachshund and handed it to an impatient
little girl who took off running like a bat out of hell. The clown watched her
go, a red smile extending across his white face. He took a quick drink of beer
and got back to work on his next masterpiece.

“This is quite
the party, man,” Dean chuckled. “You know what we did on my sixth birthday?”

Shaun lifted his
brow.

“Went
to a McDonald’s
Playland
.”

Shaun smiled,
using a long pair of tongs to flip the burgers and hotdogs covering the grill.
His eyes narrowed as a plume of smoke drifted his direction with the breeze.
“Had to hire a goddamn clown just to get out of going to Chuck E.
Cheese again.”
He stopped flipping the charbroiled meat and looked up.
“Hey! No running by the pool!” he yelled, making two redheaded girls with freckles
slow their roll along the pool’s edge. He took a quick look around to make sure
somebody was keeping an eye on all of these kids. A blond lady, sitting on the
end of the diving board with her feet dangling in the cool blue water, waved
back. “Dam, that kid’s mom is hot,” Shaun muttered, flipping another all beef patty
and making the flames lick higher.

Dean watched Shaun
steal a glance at Carrie, who was busy going on and on about who knows what
with Evy. They turned to Shaun and Dean at the same time and started giggling
before returning to their own little slice of the backyard.

Shaun snorted. “They’re
talking about you right now.”

Dean took a long
drink, admiring Evy’s sexy crossed legs, recalling when they were wrapped
around him in Shaun’s guest bathroom a half hour ago. He swallowed and wiped
beer from his upper lip.
“Could be you.”

Shaun watched
the hot dogs curl with the heat and took a drink from his bottle of beer. “Probably
talking about how big your giant cock is.”

A little boy in
a swimsuit skidded to a stop between them, holding an airplane balloon up in
the air. He cut his homemade sound effects and slowly lowered the plane,
staring up at Shaun with his head tilted to the side. “What’s a
giant cock
?”

Shaun swapped a
quick look with Dean and turned back to the brown haired boy. “It’s a chicken,
Timmy. Hey, do me a solid and run inside and grab me another beer,” he said,
wiggling his bottle in front of him. “Make sure it looks just like this one. See
my picture on it?”

The kid studied
the picture of Shaun’s smiling face and rapidly nodded, anxious to embark upon
his new mission.

“Good boy,” Shaun
said, patting him on the head and sending him springing into action.

Dean watched the
kid slide through the open French doors, flying his plane loud and proud
through the sky as he disappeared into the kitchen. “Wow, you should probably
not be around children.
Ever.”

Shaun drained
his bottle and set it down on a table next to the grill. “World’s too soft on
kids these days,
Deano
. When I was a kid, I rode my
BMX bike ten miles a day with no helmet or water. Nowadays, they wear helmets
just to take a
shit
. And God forbid they ever have a
can of soda. Now, what kind of life is that?”

Dean watched Shaun
toss some slices of cheese onto the sizzling burgers. “I used to swing across twelve-foot-high
monkey bars that dangled over rocks and broken glass.”

“Those were the
days,” Shaun said with a wistful sigh, pulling up his swim trunks. “How
ya
liking that new brew?” he asked, glancing at the bottle
in Dean’s hand.

Dean turned the
picture of Shaun’s smiling mug, plastered across the bottle’s side, to face him.
“Aside from the creepy picture, it’s really good. But I feel like we’re about
to make out every time I take a drink.”

Shaun chuckled
and turned back to the grill.
“Decided to try my hand at
brewing my own IPA this time around.
Three bottles of that shit and
you’ll be whistling Dixie with your pants around your ankles.”

Dean grunted.
“Maybe I should switch to Bud Light.”

An offended
laugh spit from Shaun’s mouth. “You know we don’t carry that cat piss around
here.”

“I don’t know
what’s stopping you from opening your own brewery.”

“I’m scared.”

“But you hate
being a dentist.”

“I know.”

Dean took a
drink of Shaun’s homemade beer and swallowed. “Speaking of free beer, no Jon
today?”

A warm blast of
air ruffled Shaun’s lips. “Who do
ya
think’s
in the clown suit?”

Dean’s brow
folded. His eyes flicked over to the raggedy clown. “Shut the hell up.”

“I’m serious,” Shaun
said, gesturing with the tongs. “All these hot moms out here in bikinis,” he whispered,
surveying the pretty ladies frolicking in the pool. “He wouldn’t miss this for
the world. Plus he gets free food and beer.”

“I walked right
by him and he didn’t say a word.”

“Part of the
deal is no talking no matter what. Plus, I think he’s kind of embarrassed by
the whole thing, being low on cash and all.”

Dean watched
some kid reach up and honk Jon’s big red nose. “Wow.”

“I bought the
suit online; figure I can use it this Halloween, cover myself in blood and go
as Pennywise from
It
.”

Dean opened his
mouth to speak and hesitated.

Timmy bounded
back outside with the bottle of beer and skidded to a stop.

“Atta
boy, Timmy!”
Shaun smiled, taking the beer and tousling the kid’s hair.

“Jimmy,” the kid
corrected in a high voice.

“Good
ta
know,” Shaun muttered, watching the kid take off to join
his friends in the yard. “Remind me to have Jon scare the crap
outta
that kid later on.”

 
Dean’s eyes landed back on Evy, unable to
resist her call, enraptured by her natural beauty. She shot him a fleeting look
and his phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and grimaced. Megan. He
silenced it and slipped it back into his jeans with a low sigh seeping from his
lips. Her texts were bad enough. Her voice mails were haunting.

Shaun twisted
the top off his beer with a low hiss and raised the bottle. “I’m happy for
ya
, man.”

Dean clinked his
bottle against Shaun’s and took a long swig, his eyes traveling the length of
legs spilling from Evy’s summer dress. Those legs were all his and he still
couldn’t believe it. His phone vibrated again.

***

Dean’s apartment
was as quiet as a graveyard compared to Shaun’s place. It felt good to kick
back on the couch and not make small talk about the weather or where he worked.
He stared into Evy’s eyes, wanting to relax in those warm green pools forever.
He shifted on the couch, her gaze making his head spin like some new designer
drug.

“Thanks again
for going to the party.”

“I had so much
fun, I love Carrie.”

Dean grinned at
her. “Shaun was lucky to find her.”

“And according
to her, I was your first
guest
at
their house. Is that true?”

He sat up
straighter. “I’m not
sure,
I’d have to Google it.”

She cocked her
head and pursed her lips. “What’s the longest you’ve ever dated anyone anyway?”

His gaze lowered
to her red nail polish. Five months wasn’t much of an answer, more like a red
flag, but those girls compared to the one sitting next to him right now were
night and day. The question wasn’t evenly weighted.

He shrugged. “I
don’t know, not long.”

“Well, what’s
your record?”

“I don’t keep
records.”

Her eyes
thinned. “What are you hiding?”

He snorted and pulled
a narrow box from the couch cushions, studied it for a moment and handed it to
her. “This.”

Evy’s eyebrows
dipped. “What’s this?”

“Here’s to new
records.”

She took it with
uncertain eyes.

“Open it.”

His watched her
fingers run across the box’s smooth shell, his heart beat speeding up. There
was a light click when she cracked it open. She gasped. “Oh my God, Dean, it’s
beautiful.”

“Put it on,” he
said, lifting the silver necklace from its red velvet confines.

“Dean, I can’t
accept…”

He shushed her
and unclasped the metal end and held it out. Her smile grew as she collected
her hair in both hands and he draped the chain around her neck. Dean stole a
quick kiss on her neck before she let her hair down. He watched her run her
fingers across the silver arrow. She was breathtaking. Her aura enveloped him,
wrapping its lustrous vapor around him and lifting him off the couch.

“It looks beautiful
on you,” he whispered.

“Dean, you
didn’t have to…”

“It reminded me
of you.”

A wry grin
pulled at her lips. “You mean the arrow I shot through your heart?”

“Something
like
that,” he chuckled, pressing his lips to hers and kissing
her passionately for what seemed like hours. They pulled apart and he stared
into those eyes, star struck as her fingers found their way back to the
necklace.

“So does this
mean we’re going steady now, Dean Jacobs?” she asked, batting her lashes and
biting back a giggle.

“Somebody has to
go to prom with me.”

Her breath fled
her like a speeding train, flying down the rails and out of sight around the
bend before she even knew what happened. She took his hand in hers and squeezed,
glowing like a harvest moon. It was ethereal and frightening at the same time.

Her face turned
somber.
“Why me?”

“Why
you what?”

“Out
of all of those girls out there, why me?”

He pressed his
lips together and studied her through attentive eyes.
“Because
you’re different than those other girls.

“Different
how?
Like a new flavor of the month
different
?”

His brow folded.
He opened his mouth to explain but the words stubbornly clung to the tip of his
tongue, so he kissed her instead, breathing her in with an ardor as alien to
him as Japanese. They discovered each other all over again like teenagers in
the dark. His heart swelled with something he couldn’t explain and he wondered
if it could kill him. Whatever it was, he didn’t want it to stop.
Ever.

They pulled
apart and he looked her in the eye.
“Different like that.”

A coy smile
parted her lips. “Point taken,” she replied, glancing down at the necklace
again. “Thank you, it’s beautiful.”

He smiled back,
knowing she was the chosen one and nothing could stop them from being together.
Fate’s course was set, his path decided by a higher entity.

Evy pulled him
back to her needy lips. His hand slid up her top and firmly cupped a breast,
leaving her short of breath. Her hand felt its way into his lap, rubbing him
with a longing that warmed his soul. He stiffened in her hand as their lips
danced together like mating swans. Her cell phone rang, making them both flinch.

She broke their
kiss with a sigh and dug the phone from her purse. “Brooke,” she said, checking
the screen.

“Go ahead.”

She answered and
spoke into the phone on automatic pilot, staring at him through star-crossed
eyes, sharing a moment together they would never forget. Her dreamy gaze suddenly
tightened.
“Right now?”
She frowned, making Dean’s
heart sink along with the bulge in his pants, and let her gaze wander around
his condo, nodding her head and throwing in some disappointed moans.

“Okay, I’m on my
way,” she said dully, sealing his fate and hanging up the
smartphone
.
She exhaled a tired breath that made her shoulders slump. “I have to go let a
plumber into the café. He’s running late and Brooke has tickets to see The
Black Keys with Ben at The Eagles Club.”

“Plumber?”

Evy threw the
cell into her purse. “Yeah, the main sink is clogged up
again
.”