Calling It (24 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

One softball team, two former professors and four neighbors later, Dorie sat at the bar of her father’s restaurant, looking at her drink. She had to admit that a part of her wondered if the turnout had something to do with Nate even though no one seemed to be paying him much attention.

Her brothers, of course, were the exception. They’d run him through several rounds of darts and were now well into an intense game of pool. She was thinking about whether she should go rescue him when someone’s arms went around her. There was a flash of red hair and then a squealed, “Lucinnnnnnnnnnndaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

“Soph?” She whipped around on the barstool. “Oh, my God! Sophie! You’re supposed to be in New Haven.”

“And you’re supposed to be in
Iowa
!” Pulling out of the hug, she punched Dorie in the arm. “Are you kidding me? My best friend in the world swoops down out of the blue with the love of her life and she doesn’t think I’d drop pretty much
everything
to come see her?” She dropped her bag to the floor, took off her coat and plunked down on a barstool. “Holy shit, Donelli. What the hell?”

“He is
not
the love of my life,” Dorie hissed. And when Sophie raised an eyebrow in protest, Dorie added, “Don’t you dare say anything like that when I actually introduce you.”

“Like what?” Sophie asked innocently as she signaled for her own drink. “You mean you haven’t told him that you made me and Kelsey O’Reilly add him to our prayer list every night when we were thirteen? No worries. My lips are sealed. I promise.”

“Good,” Dorie muttered as Claudia came and sat down on the other side of her.

Sophie laughed and turned so that she was leaning back against the bar. “Oh,
my
. That is a mighty fine specimen right there.”

As Claudia murmured her agreement, Dorie decided to turn, as well. After all, the man had brought her halfway across the country; she supposed she didn’t have to be shy about her appreciation.

The thermal shirt he was wearing stretched tightly across his shoulders as he bent over the pool table and made what must have been a beautiful shot given the look on his and Seamus’s faces while Sean and Tommy winced. “How is he more beautiful in real life than he is in all those pictures?”

With a snort, Sophie said, “That Hawkins guy is all right, I suppose, but I was actually talking about Tommy. Oh,
God
, do I need to get laid.”

The shiver that ran through Dorie’s body wasn’t a good one. “How many times do I need to tell you that you are not allowed to bring up my brother and sex in the same sentence?”

Again Sophie grinned.

Dorie elbowed her. “Claudia—will you please tell Sophie that this isn’t okay? I mean, Tommy’s basically your brother, too.”

Unfortunately, this wasn’t an argument Dorie was going to win. Not when Claudia shook her head. “Sorry, Luce. We’ll be living in your parents’ house until our new kitchen is done. I’m as desperate as Sophie is.”

This was the problem with your only female friends being people you were either related to or who were in love with one of your brothers. Both, in the case of Claudia. Dorie shuddered again. “You guys are doing this on purpose.”

After taking a long drag of her beer, Sophie answered, “Hell, yes, we are. Why are you here with us when you could have your arms wrapped around that man?”

Yes, well, that was an excellent question. One Dorie had begun to ask herself as the crowd thinned. The answer obviously had something to do with the love-of-her-life thing. That she had once upon a time planned out his proposal—on the pitcher’s mound at Fenway, of course, where he would by that point be a perennial Red Sox all-star player—was not going to convince him that they would soon be parting ways. If it came out, that was, which would be beyond horrifying.

“Actually,” Sophie said almost to herself, “why am
I
standing here?” And Sophie being Sophie, she finished off her beer, placed the bottle on the bar and walked across the restaurant to do just that. Just after Tommy sank a decent shot of his own, Sophie reached around him from behind—her hands settling just this side of decent over the button on his jeans—and murmured something into his ear that made him smile.

“Baby,” Dorie could see Tommy say in return, leaning back into her with an intimacy and ease Dorie had always envied. He turned just enough to throw his arm around her shoulders and pull her into a kiss. Then, after a questioning glance over at Dorie, he shifted a little in order to introduce her to Nate.

Oh, God. If that wasn’t enough to get Dorie across the room, nothing else was.

She got there just in time to hear Sophie say, “...BFFs for years.”

“Years, huh?” Resting his pool stick on the floor, Nate smiled. “Even during her
Full House
days?”

Sophie knew full well what Dorie’s TV-watching history was and that John Stamos had never been a part of it. Unfortunately, considering the twinkle in his eyes, it was clear to anyone watching that Nate knew that, as well. Not missing a thing, Sophie laughed. “No. But I sure got my fill of high school basketball.”

Nate, who like any other warm-blooded male in a ten-mile radius had turned to Sophie when she laughed, now turned back to Dorie. The corner of his mouth twitched up. Reaching for the chalk, he ran it slowly over the tip of his cue stick. “Really.”

Dorie looked down at the floor. Thank God Claudia chose that moment to come join them with her children in tow.

“Time to go?” Sean asked, taking their youngest out of Claudia’s arms. The three-year-old looked up drowsily, then resettled his head on Sean’s shoulder. Claire and Liam, looking all of their respective thirteen and ten years, followed closely behind. Although they’d played cards for a little while with Dorie earlier in the evening, they’d spent the past few hours in the office with their iPads.

At Claudia’s nod, Sean turned to Dorie. “So what’s your plan—are you staying at the house?”

No, they were
not
staying at the house. That was the thing you did with your boyfriend—not your three-week, sex-only fling. But rather than say that—well, not the sex-only part, obviously—she turned to Nate. “So my brothers haven’t scared you off yet?”

The second the words were out she snapped her mouth shut. Nate was the only man she’d ever even had a conversation with about that. And Nate was probably the only man in the entire universe who, standing here in her father’s restaurant with three of her brothers within arm’s reach, would respond with, “From what I can tell, they’re not even bringing their A-game,” accompanied by a kiss-my-ass grin.

After a second’s hesitation, Seamus and Tommy both laughed. Sean, on the other hand, just looked at Nate.

Turning to Claudia, Claire said, “Wait, so are they staying with us tonight or not?”

“I don’t think they’ve decided yet,
mija
,” she answered gently, giving Dorie an out.

“Nate can stay in my room,” Liam offered, shrugging as if it was no big deal.

To his credit, Nate didn’t miss a beat. “Thanks, buddy. That’s really nice of you. I might take you up on that.”

Um,
no
. “
Or
,” Dorie started to say, “maybe we could—”

“How about my room?” Claire asked. With a smug look at her younger brother, she added, “It’s bigger.”

Not only did Liam not jump at the bait—he was actually shaking his head adamantly.

“What?” Claire asked.

“You
know
...” he answered, even though she clearly didn’t. And now everyone was looking at him, which, to Liam was one of the worst things that could happen. So Dorie wasn’t entirely surprised when he blurted out the thing that he so clearly hadn’t wanted to say in the first place. “The
pictures
.”

Dorie closed her eyes, as the other shoe dropped heavily—right down onto her head—when Claire said, “What pic—” She cut herself off. Her eyes went as big as Liam’s as she looked at Nate. “Oh. Right.”

Because it wasn’t just one picture on the back of the door of Dorie’s childhood room—it was a whole collage of them. “The Shrine,” as Soph referred to it. Dorie opened her eyes to see everyone staring at her, Nate included. Yet for reasons unbeknownst to her, he didn’t seem horrified.
Bemused
was more the word she’d use.

Sean was another story. “What pictures?” he snapped, glaring at Dorie as he folded his arms in front of his chest. “Please tell me you don’t have naked pictures of Nate Hawkins in the bedroom where my thirteen-year-old daughter has been sleeping for the last two months.”

“Oh, right,” Dorie snapped right back. “So it’s my fault you didn’t do a proper inspection of
my
bedroom before you allowed Claire in?” She put her hand on Claire’s arm and whispered, “Which I don’t mind at all, sweetie. You know that, right?”

Used to not-so-occasional sibling flare-ups, Claire just smiled and nodded.

“And no one’s naked,” Sophie added, holding up her right hand. “I swear. At least not when I saw them last.” She cocked her head a little as she looked Nate up and down. “I suppose there could have been some recent additions.”

Good lord. Dorie wished she was close enough to Soph to smack her on the shoulder. “There are no naked pictures,” she hissed.

“Well, there is that one where he doesn’t have his shirt on,” Liam noted ever-so-helpfully, his expression thoughtful.

“Oh, Christ,” Seamus murmured, laughing. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

Trying to help out but failing miserably, Claire ignored Seamus’s comment and added, “But it’s from when he was, like, my age, so it’s not that big of a deal.”

“Not that big of a deal,” Sean repeated. “He was at least sixteen, which is most definitely
not
your age.”

Sophie—eyes twinkling devilishly—put in her own two cents. “I think the real question is does Nate have any naked pictures of Luce?”

This. Was. Not. Happening.

“Sadly, no,” Nate answered as easily as could be, as if half of Dorie’s family had not just spent the past several minutes discussing her pictures of him from seventeen years ago. As if they weren’t talking about naked pictures right now.

Dorie stifled the squeal that threatened to escape.

“Do you have
any
pictures of Auntie Luce?” Liam asked. “I mean, she is your girlfriend, right?”

With a grin, Nate answered, “You need to ask her, because she gets really mad when I talk about it. But, yeah. I have pictures.” He took out his phone and held it up. “Want to see them?”

“Yes!” Liam and Claire shouted as they surged forward.

“Hell,” Sophie muttered. “Me, too.”

The three of them gathered around Nate as he thumbed through. “That’s her in her apartment. She makes the best cupcakes in the world, but you probably already know that.”

Nate had pictures of her? As in, plural? From
when
?

“She has flour on her nose,” Liam said.

“Yep,” Nate said. “That’s one of my favorites.”

That would have embarrassed Dorie if she hadn’t been stunned speechless by the turn this had taken.

Nate kept going. “And this is her painting with our friends...”

“Is that...?” Tommy, who was now watching over Sophie’s shoulder, looked up at Dorie. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

Without looking up, Nate nodded. “Wash and Deke.”

“I recognize them,” Claire said. Which of course she would, given the shrine. “You all played basketball together when you were kids.”

“Yeah, we did,” Nate said softly as he thumbed through a few more pictures and then stopped, surprised. With a quiet, “Huh,” he looked down at his phone. “Fitz must have taken this.”

“Wow,” Claire murmured, her eyes going round. “Auntie Luce looks so
pretty
in that picture.”

“Yeah,” Nate answered gruffly. “She does.” He looked up at Dorie right then and suddenly all of the easy lightness was gone. Instead he seemed intense and determined.
Fierce.

His focus was off enough that he didn’t seem to realize that Claire had bent in to look more closely. “And happy.” With far too much awareness for a thirteen-year-old, she looked up at Dorie. “You both look really happy.”

For as much as Dorie wanted to see exactly what picture Claire was talking about, she couldn’t move. She was rooted in place, her eyes stinging.

“Um...Claire, Liam,” Claudia said, stepping in front of Dorie. “Mr. Hawkins—”

“Nate,” he corrected.

“Nate. Right.” Claudia took Claire by the shoulders and turned her to the door. “Time for us to go,
mija
. You’ll have plenty of time tomorrow to visit more.”

“But is he—”

“He’ll be sleeping on the couch,” Sean snapped, still clearly out of sorts. “And Auntie Luce will not be.”

Her eyes going to the ground, Dorie grumbled, “That’s Daddy’s line.”

When Seamus and Tommy started laughing again, Sean glared at them. Then he gave Nate and Sophie a curt nod goodbye and followed Claudia out.

* * *

Fuck, he had screwed up big. Nate had brought her to Boston to show her what he could give her. What he’d gotten instead was a glimpse of a future he was doing everything he could to secure, completely unsuccessfully.

He’d watched Dorie with her niece and nephews throughout the evening—teasing them, hugging them, her love for them entirely uncontained—and been nearly overcome by how much he wanted that. How much he wanted that with
her
. Any doubts he may have had were pretty much shot to hell at the sight of utter contentment on her face when the three-year-old reached his arms out to her and refused to let go until she’d agreed to carry him to the car.

He turned his back to the door and chalked his cue stick. Seamus also turned back to the table right then, bending over to take his turn after Tommy failed miserably at what should have been an easy shot. “Thanks, Soph,” he said, turning to the redhead. “Always can count on Tommy to scratch when you’re around.”

Sophie was not at all what Nate had expected in terms of Dorie’s best friend. The woman was raunchier than hell—Nate had been close enough to hear what she’d whispered in Tommy’s ear and it went about four steps past the typical locker-room conversation. At Seamus’s comment, she stuck her hand in Tommy’s back pocket, pulled him up against her and looked into Tommy’s eyes. “You can scratch my itch anytime you want, baby.”