Just a Kiss: The Bradfords, Book 5 (19 page)

Surprised, she went with it. “The bright side is that now you have something to talk to Kevin about.”

“I guess.”

“He’d really like to talk to you about…something.” And she’d get huge brownie points if that something was church.

“Does he know which two Presidents died on July fourth?”

“Um…I don’t know. But I’m going to guess no.”

“Does he know which President said, ’We might come closer to balancing the budget if all of us lived closer to the Commandments and The Golden Rule’?”

She stopped and looked down at him. “A president said that?”

“Ronald Regan.”

He met her gaze steadily. She was still holding his hand and he made no move to withdraw.

“What’s your point?” she asked.

“That you don’t have to be in church to learn stuff about God. I read that quote and then Googled the Commandments and The Golden Rule.”

Okay, he’d surprised her. Another point for the kid. “And what did you think of them?” she asked. “The Commandments and Golden Rule?”

Drew lifted a shoulder. “Seem to make a lot of sense.”

She couldn’t help it, she laughed. “I’m glad you think so.”

“What else does he know?” Drew asked.

“God?”

“Kevin.”

Oh, some interest in his big brother. This was good. “You mean besides the church stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“Football.”

He didn’t say anything to that.

“Do you like football?”

“I don’t know anything about it.”

“You don’t…” She gaped at him. “You don’t know anything about it? What do you mean?”

“I don’t know football.”

“You’ve spent ten years in this town and you don’t know anything about football? How is that possible?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I live with three single women. I know a lot about shoes and PMS.”

“PMS?” she repeated. “As in…” She trailed off as Mrs. Simpson and her three kids walked by.

He shrugged. “It’s a normal bodily function. It’s not a big deal.”

Right.

Eve waited for Mr. Watson to pass them with his two daughters. When everyone was again out of earshot she said, “Okay, so you know nothing about football and tons about PMS.” She took a deep breath and nodded. “We can fix that. You’re with the right girl if you want to know football.”

Drew studied her for a moment and she let him. It was going to take time for them to get to know each other, but she thought maybe, just maybe, he liked her. Or wanted to anyway.

“Fix it?”

“I think there are things a ten-year-old boy should know more about than PMS.”

“Like arks and whales swallowing people whole?”

Not exactly, but
yes
was the right answer here. Probably. “Yes.”

“But PMS is a fact. It’s real. Arks and whales are debatable.”

“Whales are real.”

“That a whale would swallow someone for three days and then spit them out is debatable,” he clarified.

At least he’d been paying attention during trivia. “Debatable doesn’t mean untrue,” she pointed out.

“No. But PMS isn’t debatable.”

She sighed. “If I concede that it’s okay for you to know about PMS, will you concede that learning about arks and whales isn’t a completely horrible idea?”

“Those stories are implausible.”

Six months with this kid, huh? He was going to exhaust her.

“Hey, Eve.”

She turned to find that Bryan had come up next to her. Finally. She could hand some of this Drew stuff off to him, couldn’t she? This was his job after all. His calling, even. He’d probably be thrilled to have a new soul to save. And he’d do a lot better job of it she was sure.

“Hi, Pastor Bryan. This is Drew Dawson, my friend Heather’s son. Drew, this is Pastor Bryan.”

“Hey, Drew.”

Drew gave him a quiet “hi” but made eye contact for only a second.

Right, Bryan was a guy. Drew didn’t talk to guys very well. So much for the great hand off she’d been hoping for.

“I’m thrilled to have you here tonight,” Bryan said to them both. “Hope you’ll be back.”

Eve squeezed Drew’s hand. “Sure, why not?”

Bryan met her eyes and gave her a questioning look. She frowned in return.

“That’s great,” he said, sincerely.

“Okay, so we’ll see you next week.” Eve started to turn Drew toward the door. She should have done that a lot earlier. They should have had the PMS conversation in the car.

“Oh, before that,” Bryan said with a grin. “Sunday comes before Wednesday.”

Right. Sunday. And Sunday morning church service. How could she forget? She’d spent every Sunday of the first eighteen years of her life in a church pew.

“Of course, Sunday morning,” she said brightly. She knew Bryan knew she was faking.

“Can’t wait hear you singing those hymns again, Eve,” he said.

She gave him a quick glare when Drew wasn’t looking. “You know it, Padre. Be sure to put Amazing Grace on the list. I rock that one.”

“I love getting requests,” he said, clearly enjoying all of this.

As they walked toward the doors, Drew said, “And I don’t see how the woodpeckers wouldn’t have made holes in the ark and sunk it.”

“Yeah, good point,” she said.

It was definitely harder to keep something floating when there were holes in it.

“How’s the wife and kid, Kev?” Sam asked as he came into the locker room and dropped his duffle on the bench.

“Let’s just say that I totally see the draw to the marriage thing,” Kevin answered, unable to help his grin.

Mac turned from his locker. “Yeah?”

“Totally.”

Sam slammed his locker, his eyes on Kevin. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“What?” Kevin tied his shoe. “You like being married.”

“You got lucky,” Sam said, his eyes wide. “The
first night
?” He shook his head. “I underestimated you, man. Good job.”

“Who said that?” Kevin asked, his mind flooding with images of Eve on his couch.

“Your face and that I-got-lucky grin,” Mac said, pointing a finger at him.

“I’m lucky,” Kevin agreed. And left it at that. Or tried to anyway.

“But the first night… That’s so…unlike you,” Sam said.

“He’s had a lot of time for the lust to build up,” Mac said. “I can kind of relate.”

It had been several years between the time Mac was first attracted to his wife Sara and when they finally got together.

Sam glared at Mac. “Oh, yeah? I suppose it was the first night when you and Sara got together?”

Mac turned his body to fully face Sam. “No, it wasn’t. Not that it’s your business.”

Kevin sighed and rose, shrugging into his button up shirt. “I saw her naked.” That would distract them from their stupid, ongoing argument.

They both swung to face him.

“I knew it.”

“
Naked
?”

It had been a bit more than naked. It had been hot, amazing, the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. It had tugged at his heart as hard as it had squeezed other parts of his body.

“And?”

“We talked the rest of the night.”

There was a beat of silence. Then they said in unison, “You
talked
the rest of the night?”

Kevin finished the last button on his shirt. “You never talk to your wives?”

“Hey, I get it, man,” Sam said, patting Kevin on the shoulder, then reaching for his shoes. “Eight years is a long time. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

Kevin’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Wait, what’s nothing to be embarrassed about?”

“Yeah. I mean I haven’t played Pac Man in at least eight years. I probably wouldn’t be that good at it without a little practice first,” Mac said.

“What is it you don’t think I’m good at anymore?” Kevin asked. To no avail.

“But you’d remember
how
to play,” Sam said to Mac. “You wouldn’t panic about it and end up talking instead of stepping up to the joystick.”

“Good point,” Mac agreed with a laugh.

They were on one of their rolls. Kevin crossed his arms and leaned back against his locker, waiting for them to finish their conversation about him in front of him.

And who knew? Maybe he’d pick up something useful. It was a stretch, but not completely impossible. Somehow these guys had gotten amazing women to fall in love with them.

But…he hadn’t talked to Eve because he’d
forgotten
what else to do. It wasn’t like he was completely pure in thought and deed in the past eight years. He’d touched women, kissed women, made out and had to pull back before it went too far. And he’d definitely wanted it to go too far a few times.

But the heat had never been so intense so fast. This even beat the way he’d felt as a horny teenager with Eve herself.

And maybe that’s all this was—heat and temptation and nothing to hold them back—that made it more seductive.

Going without sex as a virgin wasn’t nearly as hard as having had a taste and then deciding to say no. And he’d had a taste. Not just of women and sex in general, but of Eve. Even now he could remember it. They’d been young and nervous. He’d been with two girls before Eve, but with her it had truly mattered for the first time. It had made his hands shake and what little technique he might have acquired completely abandon him. They’d bumbled their way through it. It hadn’t been the best sex ever from a physical standpoint, but his heart remembered what it had been like. And it wanted more.

The only thing saving him from going crazy without her—especially as woman after woman failed to give him the same feelings she had—was the anger and hurt he’d held toward her for the past fourteen years.

Now seeing her again, he was feeling that let up a little. Okay, a lot.

Because of everything from her attempts to make Drew feel good to the fact that she liked
Star Wars
and dirty talk. And the kisses. And the way she’d touched herself. Everything about last night. The hot, intense, too-soon, I’ve-never-felt-this-with-anyone-else night.

It was definitely making him more forgiving.

Then what if they were completely mismatched in every other way? What if he couldn’t trust her again? Would he walk away? Or would he make up excuses and overlook problems so he could stay in her bed?

That would be pathetic, but he was seriously concerned.

He was lost in thought, barely aware that Sam and Mac had headed into the break room for food, until Dooley asked, “So how long is the list you made of all the reasons you shouldn’t sleep with her?”

Kevin wasn’t particularly surprised that Dooley knew what he’d been thinking. “Why would I make a list like that?”

“Because you’re trying to convince yourself that sex with Eve is frosting on the cake.”

“The cake?”

“The relationship. You’ve convinced yourself that the frosting, the sex, just makes it better, it’s just extra. You can have cake without frosting and you think you can have a relationship without sex.”

Kevin had heard nearly every theory about women and sex that any of his friends—especially Dooley—had. They were entertaining at least.

“And you’re telling me I can’t? That sex is integral?”

Dooley finished buckling his belt. “Sex isn’t the frosting on the cake, man. It’s the sugar in the batter—a key ingredient.”

“You can have sex without a relationship,” Kevin pointed out. Both of them had proven that several times.

“Sure. By itself, it’s great, lots of ways to use it, but it’s just sugar. But if you want
cake,
you have to mix the sugar in with a bunch of other stuff. Like a relationship.”

Kevin wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the rest of this. But he wasn’t sure he could resist.

“And you can’t have a cake without sugar,” Kevin said. “I’m with you so far.”

“Well, you can try it, but it won’t be any good,” Dooley said. “And if you try a relationship with Eve without the sex, it won’t be as good as it can be either.”

“That sounds like a really good excuse to have sex.” But he was listening.

“It’s a good
reason
,” Dooley said, unapologetically. “If you love her, sex isn’t just a nice way to spend some time. It’s—more than that. It connects you in a way that you can’t connect with anyone else. It’s a way of expressing emotions that are too big to say sometimes.”

Kevin’s heart thumped.

Whether or not his friend was incredibly eloquent about it or not, Dooley was right. He’d been there. Kevin knew he felt closer to Eve than he ever had to anyone and that being as close as possible physically seemed almost
necessary
. Like he couldn’t have held anything back, including every part of his body, and he wanted to be close to every part of her, every inch of her physically. It was different with her than with other women.