What's Life Without the Sprinkles? (8 page)

Stepping over some fallen toy soldiers and a handful of games spread out on the floor, Nate headed for the kitchen. He threw the mail on the table. The whole pile slid along the slick surface but stopped before completely falling off the table, joining others on the table. He wasn’t normally a slob, but with two jobs going on, he was busy. He really needed to clean this place up, and tonight was the perfect time. Though he knew Claudia and Justin were probably at the batting cages, he didn’t want to intrude. Justin seemed to have some stuff on his mind lately, and maybe he would talk to Claudia about it tonight in between swings.

For his part, Nate had no plans for the evening. It was still early, and he was going to be busy again come Monday. Especially since he was probably taking Claudia and Justin out to dinner Monday evening. It would be a welcome fun thing to do after the lunch they had to attend this weekend. He still hadn’t decided whether he wanted to go or not.

Wandering over to the refrigerator, he pulled open the door and checked out what he had. He grabbed a package of filet he’d taken out of the deep freeze in the garage earlier in the week and seasoned it. He’d grill again. No big deal.

Thinking about the upcoming couple of days brought two things to the front of his mind. For one, he hoped Claudia could handle Peter. He knew she could, but he hoped she came out the other side okay. Secondly, as much as it was never a hardship to take Claudia anywhere—she’d been potty trained for years—he did hope her nervous tick would go away before their dinner.

Then again, maybe she finally needed glasses. He’d been telling her for years that holding paper at arm’s length wasn’t the norm. And if she really wanted to enjoy those romance novels she liked to read, she should break down and get glasses. Maybe that was the problem the other night when her eyelashes kept fluttering.

Because the only other explanation he’d been able to come up with over the last few days was that she was trying to flirt with him, and that made about as much sense as using a ballpeen hammer to pound in a stake on a railroad tie. Not to mention they’d been friends forever and, despite a few wet dreams at night when he was younger, he’d put her in a box labeled Not For Sex, Ever.

It was too ridiculous to even contemplate. Wasn’t it?

Chapter Four

“Come on, Justin,” Claudia called down the short hallway, hoping to be heard over his stereo. Wasn’t loud stereo noise supposed to come in the teens? Her child was smart for his age and sometimes older than she thought he should be, but he was really pushing this expected-behavior thing straight over a cliff.

“What?” the muffled reply came through the closed door near the end of the hallway.

“Come on out if you want to go to the batting cages.” She pounded on the door for good measure.

“What?” A little louder this time.

“All right,” she said to herself. “I’ve tried the whole respecting privacy business, but this is ridiculous.” Turning the knob, she tried to shove open the door but something was in the way.

“Mom!” he said in a whiny, sing-song voice.

“Justin!” Claudia sent it right back to him. “Move whatever the heck is keeping this door wedged closed, and let me in.”

“But this is my room, and you said you’d respect my privacy.”

Ooh, it sucked to have her words thrown back at her, especially when she was trying to do something nice for the little hooligan, something she didn’t even particularly like to do. “I wouldn’t have any problem respecting your privacy if you could ever hear me.”

“What?”

“Open the door!” She was trying so hard not to use the f-word right now, and her breath gurgled in the back of her throat. What a great way to spend a fun Friday night.

“Jeez, Mom, just hold on a second.”

Oh, my God! She was not going to survive his puberty—and he might not either.

After much banging and grunting and groaning, the door opened. And it was like coming across an overflowing dumpster in the middle of a skating rink.

There, standing in the middle of piles of clothes, magazines, toys, and CDs, was her son. Four-foot-nine of attitude, maleness, and angst. But under it all, he was a great kid, one who tried to cook her dinner and would rub her back when she’d had a long day. One who still to this day made Mother’s Day and Father’s Day cards for her. One who really was the apple of her eye when he wasn’t being a pain in her ass.

She propped herself against the door jamb and waited for him to stop shuffling his feet and actually look at her. She didn’t have long to wait, and she got a half-cocked smile, one that was pure Nate. It forced her a half step back as it rocked her in her shoes.

When had Justin become a small Nate and no longer a small Claudia, or even a small Peter? In the looks department, Justin and Nate couldn’t be farther from each other. Justin was the spitting image of Peter with his dark hair and dark eyes. But in attitude and mannerisms, he was a little Claudia and a lot Nate.

Was she going after the right thing with wanting Nate for herself? What if she broke the friendship and the easy relationship her son had with the one man in his life who had accepted him from day one, with the exception of his granddad on her side?

But then the half smile bloomed into a full-blown one, showing all his pearly whites and the eye tooth that was still growing in, and he was all Justin. A little con artist who could charm the money out of his grandma’s pocketbook.

“So what did you want to tell me, Mom? I’m all ears for you now.” He patted her shoulder and weaseled his way under her arm to lean against her side. “Are you still going to take me to the batting cages? Because that would be so cool. You would be the best mom ever. Not that you aren’t right now the best mom ever, but then you’d be the bestest,
bestest
mom ever, and I could brag to all the guys about what a great mom I have.” He even had the audacity to wink at her.

“You’re laying it on a little thick, don’t you think, kid?”

“Aw, shucks. Of course not. You know I mean every word of it.”

“Aw, shucks? Now I know you’re laying it on thick, like crap in a backed-up sewage system.”

“Mo-om!”

It was a true pleasure to gross him out. “Anyway, yes, I am taking you to the batting cages if you’d get your stuff together and get some shoes on.”

He dashed around his room faster than she’d seen him move in a while. A moment later he was in the hallway with the smile, a comic book, and some dubious shoes on his feet.

“I thought I threw those sneakers away last week.”

“I saw them in the trash and figured they’d been dumped by accident, so I took them back out. They only kind of smell like bananas now.”

They were high-top Converse, had about ten holes in the fabric of each shoe, and drawings all over the canvas. There was a reason they had been in the trash, and it wasn’t an accident. But she’d learned to pick her battles, and right now the battle she wanted to have was the one about the music, not his footwear choice.

He seemed to listen as she talked about the noise level of the music and how it was disruptive to the shop downstairs as well as making it hard for her to hear him and vice versa. He seemed to take it all in, nodding at the appropriate places, and then proceeded to crank up the stereo in the car and sing at the top of his lungs.

Maybe she would take him on about the shoes.

****

Sixty minutes and about three hundred balls later, Claudia wasn’t capable of taking on anyone about anything. She’d gladly sleep on top of those shoes if the choice were given to her.

“Come on, Mom. No time for sitting down and resting. You’re not old. You should have more energy than this.” He swung his bat a couple of times, warming up inside the cage, and then readjusted his helmet.

“You didn’t say I had to hit balls, too.” She sat behind the fence, willing to risk permanent chain linking on her cheek if she could just rest her eyes for a single minute.

She was pathetic. An hour of swinging a bat shouldn’t take this much out of her. But she hadn’t exercised in forever, and her demon spawn of a child had set her up with fast pitch for about three rounds before she realized other people had slower speeds, where the ball wasn’t aimed and determined to take out a leg or arm or other valuable and necessary body part.

“Come on, this is fun!”

The chink of the bat striking the ball made her lift her head a fraction. “Good hit.” Then her chin dropped to her chest again, and she admitted defeat. Sure, being the bestest,
bestest
mom was something to strive for, but this was ludicrous, and she was now sweaty beyond belief. She’d kill for a shower right before the small nap. She could do wonders with the water fountain on the other side of the cages, and the hard, standard-issue metal bench was looking downright cozy.

“Hey, batter, batter, swing, batter, batter!”

The voice was so familiar, and it sent tingles right down the center of her limp spine.

****

Nate hadn’t had anything else to do tonight. After making his steak on the grill and trying to get interested in a DVD, he gave up and left the house. He’d felt lonely knowing even Fred was out on a Friday night. He’d thought about calling up his brother or a buddy, but spending time with his favorite guy and friend trumped any other plans he could have come up with.

So here he was, figuring Justin had had enough time to talk to his mom if he’d needed to and hoping he wasn’t busting in on the poor little guy’s parade.

Claudia jumped from her previous slumped position to sitting rigid in a hurry. He walked up behind her and automatically started kneading her shoulders. “Long day?”

“Mmmm. You have no idea.” She purred and stretched.

He dropped his hands like she was a wire and they’d forgotten to turn off the electricity before stripping it bare.

“Is that all I get?” She looked up at him through lowered lashes, and he worried she might start in with the eyelash thing again.

“Yeah, well, I was just over this way and saw your car, so I thought I’d stop in and see how you were doing.” He smiled and took a seat next to her. She was sweaty and dirty and looked like the Claudia he used to chase around the playground in elementary school. This was the more comfortable Claudia. The one he could deal with on a daily basis. He’d been crazy to think she had been flirting with him the other night.

Justin started packing his batting bag in the cage in front of them. Claudia moved her body a little on the bench to make room for Justin to sit down when he came out. But instead of moving down away from Nate, she moved toward him and ended up nearly smooshing her very curvy body up against his.

He popped off the bench like a jack-in-the-box. She nearly fell on the ground, righting herself at the last second.

“Are you okay?” he asked, grabbing her arm and fighting embarrassment. What the hell was wrong with him? “God, I’m so sorry.”

“Not a problem, Nate.” She lowered her lashes and fluttered them.

On second thought, what the hell was wrong with her?

Cool fingers trailed up his arm and lightly pinched his bicep. “Why so nervous?”

Good question, but he didn’t feel he had a good answer. She was running him ragged. Time to take control back and get onto a different subject. He could still feel the imprint of her breast on his arm where she’d leaned against him. And as much as he’d like to say it hadn’t affected him in the least—come on, this was his friend Claudia—a boner was starting in his pants. A completely inappropriate response to the girl whose ponytails he used to pull and whose shoes he had put slugs in.

“I’m not nervous. I, um, just remembered I need to get to the grocery store before they close.”

“But it’s only six-thirty. You have hours. I was thinking maybe we could get some pizza and a movie and close ourselves in for the night.” She leaned back against the bench with her arms behind her, crossed her legs and seemed to thrust out her chest.

He almost swallowed his tongue. He found it tucked into the side of his mouth between his teeth and unstuck it so he could say, “Tonight’s not going to work for me, but I’ll definitely see you Sunday at the Peter lunch. Have a good night.” He scooted out of there so fast his pants might have been on fire. That description was not too far from the truth he realized as he sat in his car telling his libido to calm the hell down.

****

“Now when you go near him again, you might not want to revert to the blinking thing again.” Two hours later, the lesson had begun. While Claudia groaned at her sister’s words, Zoe was obviously relishing every single syllable coming out of her mouth. It wasn’t often she got to be the one telling her older sister what to do and how to do it. There was a reason for that.

Apparently Zoe’s date had not gone off well, and so she had come back to the apartment to corner Claudia, who was alone for the night. After Nate had left for his mysterious and ridiculous errand to the grocery store, one of the moms of Justin’s baseball teammates had found them at the batting cages and invited him for a sleepover. Even though the night stretched out before her, Claudia had said yes. Honestly, it would be nice to have a night off to regroup after Nate had turned her down for dinner and a movie in. She needed to lick her wounds, and instead she was getting flirting tips from Zoe.

“It wasn’t a blinking thing! I was trying to bat my eyelashes at him.”

She demonstrated, and Zoe jumped right on her. “Honey, that is not batting your eyelashes. That it definitely blinking like you have something in your eye.”

Claudia heaved a sigh. “I told you I was a complete lost cause. Even at the batting cages I couldn’t get it right. He talked to Justin and then just walked away as if I didn’t exist except as the mom.”

“No, no, no. I’m just saying we might need to take a more direct approach. After all these years, he may not get a more subtle hint.”

“I’m going to give up on it. I don’t know why I thought I could flirt anyway. We’re comfortable the way we are. Forget about it.”