What a Woman Needs (21 page)

B
ETH
pulled on her blouse and worked the buttons with boneless fingers. God, she hadn’t had a massage in years. She’d forgotten how awesome they were.

She
wouldn’t
, however, forget how awesome Bryan was for making this possible for her today.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” asked Molly, the receptionist as she handed her the bill.

Beth was half tempted to say “Bryan Manley,” but she’d been through that with Kara last night.

But last night he’d been
Bryan Manley
. Today he was just Bryan. A man who was thoughtful enough to take on her five kids just so she could take a break.

Why?

That was the question she’d been asking herself all day. Sure, he was a nice guy, but this went above and beyond
nice,
and she was sure babysitting wasn’t part of his Manley Maids’ duties. He had to have other things to do on a Saturday. Especially when he’d be back at her place on Monday.

She was actually giddy at that thought.

Shaking her head, Beth took her change and rolled up a few bills for her masseuse’s tip and handed them back to Molly. “Can you get this to Hayley?”

Molly wouldn’t take it. “She’d rather have Bryan Manley’s autograph. We were talking about it.”

Of course they were. So, too, Beth realized, were all the other women in the salon. With the cucumber slices on her eyes, the New Age music filtering through the earbuds they’d given her, and the sheer release of tension from her facial and massage, Beth hadn’t been aware of the stares. She was now, though.

“I’ll see what I can do.” She didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to ask him. But it was such a small thing and would mean so much to Hayley that Beth had to suck up her embarrassment. He’d do it; she knew he would. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was, she didn’t want to be just another groupie.

Yeah, but you are, so you might as well embrace it.

She’d rather embrace him. And not because of who he was professionally, but who he was personally. This day had been such a gift. A few precious hours when she didn’t have to worry about the kids or stop what she was doing to take someone somewhere.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said again, tucking the bills into her wallet.

If only Kara hadn’t said what she’d said last night, Beth wouldn’t feel so embarrassed to ask him. Heck, she’d hardly been able to talk to him last night after that revelation. God, if he ever found out or, worse, thought she’d been in on the plan, she’d never be able to look at him again. Here he was, being a regular human being, and her friends wanted to hire him out as their fantasy booty call. Where had her normal life gone?

“He seems like a really nice guy,” said Molly.

The pumping for information wouldn’t stop until Bryan was gone. And even then, Beth was sure the questions would continue for months. She pulled out her keys, jingling them so there was no mistaking that she was leaving and the font of town gossip would soon dry up. “He is. Very nice. Does a good job around the house, too.”

“If he were in my house, I’d just have him sit there and look gorgeous.”

Oh no she wouldn’t. Molly would be angling for other activities. As would half the women here, according to Kara. “Believe it or not, that would get old. Besides, it’s not all about a person’s looks.”

Molly, in her early twenties, looked at Beth as if she was speaking a foreign language. To a twentysomething, she probably was. “Seriously? I don’t believe it.”

Beth shrugged and slipped her purse strap over her shoulder. “After you’ve been through what I’ve been through in the past two years, you realize it’s the person inside who matters, not what they look like.”

“Yeah, but how cool is it when the outside matches the inside?”

Hmmm. For a twentysomething, Molly did have pretty good insight.

It was something that stuck with Beth all the way home. And flared up again when she walked in to find Bryan and her three youngest huddled around her kitchen table, checking something out on an iPad.

“Ewww. That’s gross.”

“They’re lying. That’s not what’s gonna happen.”

“See? Mommy always says soda’s bad for you. You keep drinking it, you’re gonna look like the Bominable Snowman with no teeth.” Maggie sat back in her chair and crossed her arms with a definitive nod of her head. “Right, Mommy?”

Three more pairs of eyes turned her way and for a second, it felt as if Bryan had every right to be there and she had every right to expect him to be.

“Uh, right about what?”

“A lady at the grocery store told Mark and Tommy that soda will eat your teeth. Is that true?”

She looked at Bryan for this one. “Eat your teeth?”

“Destroy the enamel.” He held up the iPad with a really gross picture on it. “See?”

“Um, no thank you. I don’t want to look at that.” She walked over and nudged the iPad back onto the table, picture side down.

Bryan smiled at her and the next thing she knew, his arm was around her waist and she was sitting on his leg.

And they both looked startled at the same time.

“I—”

“Uh—”

“I should—” Beth stood up.

“Sorry.” Bryan crossed his arms and buried his hands in the crooks. “I didn’t mean to— Well, I shouldn’t have touched— I don’t know why I did that.”

He didn’t? Damn. She’d hoped it’d been the same reason she’d allowed it. Not that there’d been any conscious thought about it; it’d just happened. He’d pulled her onto him and she’d gone along. The most natural move in the world. She and Mike had done it thousands of times.

But Bryan isn’t Mike.

Like she needed the reminder.

“Mommy, why do you look so funny?”

And now her face was flaming red. “Because I just had a massage and my face was in a hole in the table.”

That led to more internet surfing so she could show them what a massage table looked like—
judicial
internet surfing because looking up “massage” might as well be akin to searching “porn.” She finally had to step away from the iPad while Bryan did the search because some of the images were just too blatant for her to be looking at with Bryan Manley in her kitchen in front of her kids.

Mainly because she wouldn’t mind
trying out
some of those images with Bryan Manley in the kitchen, but definitely
not
in front of her kids.

Luckily, the kids grew bored with the massage discussion, then showed her their egg experiments, then, of course, demanded to know what was for dinner. She was so tired of thinking about what was for dinner. Who’d eat what, what she had in the house, how long it’d been since they had that particular meal. If it were up to the kids, they’d have hotdogs and hamburgers every night—which was probably what she was going to go with tonight since it was easy.

“Why don’t we go out to dinner? My treat?” Bryan shut down the iPad and stood up. “We can grab Kelsey and Jason on the way. What’s everyone in the mood for? Beth?”

What she was in the mood for wasn’t something for dinner. “Bryan, you don’t have to do this.”

“I know, but you’ve had a relaxing day. No need to have to come home and cook. Let’s go out. It’ll be fun.”

“Yes! Let’s go! I want tacos!”

“I want fish sticks!”

“I want ice cream!”

“You can’t have ice cream for dinner,” said Mark, flicking Maggie’s curls.

“I can if I want to, can’t I, Bryan?” Her daughter turned those baby browns on Bryan and Beth saw him visibly melt.

“You’re going to have to ask your mom that one, Maggie.”

“Great. Make me the bad guy,” Beth muttered so only he could hear.

“Sorry. Not my intention,” he whispered back.

“Uh-huh.” Poor guy looked like a deer in the headlights, which was pretty funny when he’d done the talk show rounds and dealt with hundreds of reporters and crowded streets of fans, but he couldn’t come up with an answer for a five-year-old about ice cream?

“We can have ice cream after dinner, Maggie.” She brushed Maggie’s curls off her face. “But first you have to eat something healthy.”

“But you said ice cream is healthy, Mommy. It’s made of milk. And strawberry ice cream has fruit in it.”

Darn. She hated when she had her words thrown back in her face. Especially from a night when she hadn’t felt like cooking and had given in to the idea of ice cream for dinner. “Only on special occasions, Maggie.”

“Tonight’s special. Bryan’s with us.”

Had Kara coached Maggie?

Bryan coughed. “Let’s have the ice cream for dessert, okay?”

“Double scoop?”

Bryan looked at Beth.

She nodded.

“Okay, double scoop it is. Let’s grab your brother and sister and get in the truck.”

“In the van, silly. We can’t all fit in your truck.”

 • • • 

B
RYAN
never thought he’d see the day that he would be driving a minivan anyplace other than on a movie set, yet here he was doing it in his home town. But with Beth and the kids in with him it was funny how he didn’t mind.

You are in a heap of trouble, Manley
.

It was funny that he didn’t mind
that
, either.

He didn’t mind the minivan, he didn’t mind the looks as they all walked in the restaurant. He didn’t mind the waitress barely being able to take their order, and he really didn’t mind the pea incident that drove Beth nuts. Apparently, the twins differed on their opinion of peas and Mark delighted in sneaking them into Tommy’s mashed potatoes. Tommy then delighted in shoving them down Mark’s shirt.

“Mark Joseph Hamilton, you switch places with Jason this instant,” Beth stage-whispered across the table.

“But he started it.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“I don’t care who started it, I want it ended. Move, young man. Now. Or you’re going to be sitting out of a lot of rides tomorrow.”

Testament to Beth’s parenting skills (or threat), Mark
did
actually move. Even more impressive, Jason didn’t groan about having to sit between Tommy and Maggie.

Not that Maggie was giving them any trouble. The “log cabin” she was building on her plate out of French fries was keeping her very well occupied.

“Can I still go on the Whirring Devil tomorrow since I moved my seat?” Mark asked in a contrite voice Bryan hadn’t heard in the eleven days he’d been with the family.

“It’s the Whirling Dervish and yes,” answered his mother, managing to look amazingly beautiful in a simple white T-shirt and a pair of dangly pink earrings Maggie had proudly announced she’d asked Beth to wear since they were going out to dinner. Maggie had picked them out for Beth from her school Christmas bazaar last year.

“Cool. I’m gonna ride it all day.”

“You’ll get sick,” said Jason, shoveling spaghetti in as if he were baling hay. “This guy John in my class, he did that. Said he can’t go near the ride ever since. Makes him sick just to think about it.”

“He got sick for real? Like right on the ride?” Tommy forgot about the land mines in his potatoes as Jason shared the teenage-boy-appropriate story while the girls kept saying “Gross” and “Ew” and Beth told Jason to zip it at least three times. Not in those terms, but perhaps she should have because Jason had to get all the way through the story before he’d stop.

“So what rides are you gonna go on, Bryan?” asked Maggie, his champion in the Hamilton household. It warmed his heart how she always wanted to include him. A bad idea, he knew, since she was becoming too attached, but Bryan couldn’t find it in himself to set her straight and tell her that what she was doing—what she was hoping—wasn’t ever going to happen. He and Beth were not going to be together.

“You’re coming to the park with us?” Jason perked up at that. “Cool. Everyone’s gonna be talking about it.”

Kelsey came out of her texting haze. “Really? You’re coming? I have to text Maddy. She so needs to go to the park tomorrow.” Back she went to her phone, but this time with a smile instead of a scowl on her face.

“Hang on, guys, I didn’t say I was coming.”
Beth
had to say he was coming. He’d go in an instant, but only if
she
wanted him to, not because her kids did.

“You hafta come!” Tommy shoveled a forkful of potatoes into his mouth and didn’t even grimace on the pea Bryan saw at the end of it.

“Yeah, you need to ride the roller coasters with us. They’re awesome!” said Mark. “Please, Mom? Can Bryan come? I’ll pay for his ticket.”

“I can, too!” said Tommy.

“Me, too. I have some money in my piggy bank,” said Maggie.

Kelsey and Jason chimed in and Bryan almost choked on the last bit of his steak. The kids’ generosity just about killed him.

“Well, Bryan, I guess that means you’re invited to the park with us tomorrow.” Beth said it with a smile, but he wasn’t sure if the invitation was genuine or not.

Not that it mattered because the kids’ cheers gave him no out. He was going or he’d have five very disappointed kids on his hands come Monday.

He took a sip of water to clear his throat. “I’d love to come, but on one condition.”

“What?” the kids said in unison, looking at him with such hopeful eyes that he got choked up again.