And you worried that he’d be a perv? You’re the perv.
I take my hand back abruptly, as if bitten.
“Mom,” Aidan says, “you tell me I’m always supposed to say my name when someone introduces themselves. You didn’t say your name.”
The blush I felt deepens. I ignore it. “Mary O’Shea,” I say.
The man, Jace, is watching my mouth in a way that has me wiping at it.
“Did I smear my lipstick? Sorry, I was in a rush to make it down here.”
He shakes his head slightly, an almost delicate gesture for a man so large. “No, nothing like that. It’s nice to meet you. My friend, Aidan, has been telling me all about you.”
“No, I didn’t really talk much about her,” Aidan says. “I just told you that she’s been lying to me about Santa for my entire life. And that my dad’s on a long business trip.”
Great.
Jace is looking at me skeptically, as if to say he knows I’m a liar, and not just about jolly men in red suits. Good for him. He can judge me all he pleases. Still, I can’t ignore the fact that Aidan actually opened up to him. That’s what I’ll choose to focus on. Not his judgment. And certainly not his eyes.
“Well, thank you, Mr. Hagan,” I say. “I’m glad Aidan has a…” Oh, God, I can’t say it. This man is all man. He’s no one’s buddy. Finally, I choke it out. “Bud–dy.”
“Call me Jace,” he says. His gaze shifts to Aidan, who’s still sitting in his chair, in absolutely no hurry to leave. “You too.”
“Are you ready, Aidan?” I ask. “There’s just enough time for a puzzle or an episode of Dinosaur Train before I bring you to Aunt Maisie’s house.”
“I’m not ready to go, Mom,” Aidan says. The zipper on his sweater goes up and down. “I’d rather keep playing with Jace.”
Embarrassment floods me. My son would prefer to hang out with this beefcake than go home with me, and now the beefcake knows it. Feeling someone’s gaze on me, I turn slightly—which is when I remember that Ms. Duckworth and the librarian are both still present. Jace’s presence is so large, so all-encompassing, that I’d completely forgotten. Excellent. My humiliation is complete.
“Honey,” I say slowly to Aidan before glancing back at Jace. “Jace has to go home to his own house. He can’t stay here forever.”
“Why do you keep looking at him like that, Mom?” Aidan asks. “You usually don’t look at people this much.”
“Because he’s a new acquaintance,” I mutter. “It’s good to pay attention to what new people look like so you can recognize them when you see them again.”
Aidan considers my response, then nods, thank God. I don’t dare look at Jace. I can’t let him realize I have a pathetic attraction to him. Although, looking like he does, he probably has a line of women who follow him around like children flock to ice cream trucks.
Ice cream.
Since the puzzle wasn’t enough of a draw, I add, “Why don’t we stop for ice cream on the way home?”
Sure, it’s bribery, but I’m not above it. Besides, he needs to eat more, and I’m at the calories-are-calories stage of desperation.
“It’s cold out, Mom,” Aidan scolds. “That’s not a good treat for a day like today.”
“Okay, how about stopping for a hot chocolate at the Chocolate Lounge?”
Something lights in his eyes, and I know I have him on the hook, until he says, “I want Jace to come.”
My gaze flits to Jace again, dammit, and there’s a flicker of a smile playing at his lips.
“I’m sure Mr. Ha—Jace has places to be, sweetheart. But you’ll see him again…”
“Thursday,” Ms. Duckworth supplies from behind me. Oh God, she’s still here.
“I want him to come,” Aidan repeats. Zipper goes up. Zipper goes down.
If Jace doesn’t come, getting Aidan to leave quietly is going to be a problem, so as much as I’d like to end this encounter, I find myself glancing at him.
He’s giving me a questioning look, so I offer a slight nod.
“I love hot chocolate,” Jace says. “Sounds great.”
Of course, Aidan being Aidan, he adds, “My mom and I are lactose intolerant. But they have almond milk at the Chocolate Lounge, right, Mom? That’s why I like it the best.”
“Right, Aidan,” I mutter, collecting his backpack. I can practically feel Jace laughing. It’s bad enough that Not-Santa knows milk makes me bloated. The last thing I want is for a man like this to know about my bloat.
Forcing myself to look at him, I catch the slightest quirk of his lips—knew it—and then force out, “We go to the one on Riverside Drive. It’s his favorite, and they actually have a parking lot.”
“I know it,” he says with a dip of his head. “I live nearby.”
My mind jumps to where a man like this would live. The upper floor of a garage? The back of a tattoo parlor?
I can practically hear my sister Molly add the inside of a sexually repressed suburban housewife’s imagination?
I clear my throat. “We’ll meet you there, then. Thank you, Jace.”
I make myself turn and nod to Ms. Duckworth, who’s watching us like we’re the cast of a soap opera. The librarian, who’d been craning her neck to look at us, knocks over one of the empty red-wrapped presents by her desk. She has the grace to blush.
“Okey dokey,” I say, and immediately hate myself. “Let’s get the show on the road.”
“Mom, that’s a dumb saying,” Aidan says. “It doesn’t really mean anything.”
I just gesture for him to get moving, silently adding, Actually, it does, Aidan. It means your mom is making a freak show out of herself.
I don’t wait for Jace to leave the library. I hurry Aidan off like I just pulled off a heist, which is stupid for multiple reasons but mostly because we’re about to meet up with him again. It’s not like I can run away. Still, as I prepare to leave, I spy Jace in my peripheral vision, folding himself into a red truck. It suits him.
Few things wouldn’t suit him.
It’s just a sexual attraction though, nothing more. Molly has always put a lot of stock in that sort of thing. And given that Maisie wound up dating her husband after they had a one-night stand, I suppose she does too. But that’s just foolish. You can be attracted to an ottoman, and it doesn’t mean it would make a good boyfriend. And okay, if you’re attracted to an ottoman, you have bigger problems than being single, but that’s beside the point. Sexual attraction is meaningless.
But I can’t deny I feel a weird sort of anticipation as I drive us to the Chocolate Lounge.
After I get on the highway, I shoot a glance at Aidan in the rearview mirror. He’s actually looking back to see if Jace’s truck is following us. Maybe he just likes the color—red is one of his favorite colors, his current issues with Santa notwithstanding—but I can tell there’s more to it.
“You like Jace, don’t you?”
“Of course I do, Mom,” he says, settling back into his seat. “He’s my friend. You’re supposed to like your friends.”