CHAPTER NINE
Burke had a son?
A son who was out of town with his mother?
Lila drove through the rain, windshield wipers going double time, oncoming headlights smeared streaks in the dark.
What the hell had she been doing, getting all snuggly with Burke? Griffin Burke, the man about whom she knew absolutely nothing, aside from the fact she felt more comfortable and in tune with him than with any other man she’d ever met. In her entire life. Had from the instant she’d laid eyes on his shy smile and his pink frosting mustache.
Oh, and now she knew he had a son.
A son who was with his mother out of town.
Burke had a family.
And here Lila was, wearing his sweatshirt and his socks and eating his food and sighing over his pretty eyes, and not for one minute had she even thought that he’d be taken already.
She was an idiot. Who wouldn’t want a man like Burke?
Dating 101: make sure the guy is available.
Except she wasn’t dating him.
It didn’t matter that he had a family already. Lila wasn’t looking to start a relationship with a built-in expiration date, which was as soon as she’d found a job in Seattle, but… She sighed. She’d been having such a nice night.
And when he’d said that, David was out of town with his mother, Lila had been doused with cold shock.
She’d been flirting with and cuddling up to—at least she would have, if he’d gotten on the couch with her—another woman’s man.
No.
Hell, no.
She did not roll that way.
“Call Jenny,” Lila instructed her phone. It rang and rang. And rang.
“Hello?”
“Take your time, why don’t you?” Lila snapped before she noticed that the voice at the other end was about an octave or two too deep for her best friend.
“I usually do,” Derek replied.
“Derek? Where’s Jenny?”
“Reading Kate a bedtime story. Hold on, I’ll run the phone up.”
“No.”
“Oh-kaaay. Everything all right?”
“Yes. Why? Don’t be nosy. I didn’t call you. I’m hanging up now.”
“Want me to get Jen to call you back?”
“I’ll catch up with her tomorrow. Night, Derek.”
“Night.”
Lila drummed her fingers on the wheel. She could have asked Derek. In fact, he would be the right person to ask, since he was Burke’s employer, and he’d have that sort of information on file.
Right. Then she’d have to deal with his questions. Questions such as, why do you want to know Burke’s relationship status, Lila? Which would swiftly devolve into Lila and Burke sitting in a tree nonsense, and all she wanted here was a little clarification.
She waited at the stop light, gripped the wheel.
What the hell.
“Call Kurt.”
The phone went straight to voicemail. Damn it.
The light turned green. After a second of hesitation, Lila flipped on the turn signal and instead of driving through town and heading home, she aimed her car for Kurt’s.
She pulled up in the parking lot and took a moment to glance in the rearview mirror. Holy shit. Her hair was…actually a fairly good external representation of her emotional state right now.
She dug around in her tote for her hairbrush, tore it through her mop a few times and scraped the crazy back, corralling it with her gym scrunchie. She popped open her door and dashed through the rain into the bar.
So, okay. She was about to embarrass herself. No problem. She’d already embarrassed herself in front of Kurt this month, what was another go-around?
And she didn’t know why this whole Burke thing even mattered, but it did.
She strode through the bar. Since it was early in the week, the place wasn’t all that busy, which was probably why she drew a few startled looks. Right. She was still wearing Burke’s sweatshirt. It was so long on her that scarcely an inch of her skirt showed beneath the hem. She lifted her chin, put an extra swing into her hips, and stalked to the bar, where Kurt and his new bartender, Greg, were slinging drinks.
Raising her hand to catch Kurt’s attention, she pointed with a stiff arm at his office and stalked for the STAFF ONLY door.
“What, Lila?” Kurt demanded as he came into his office. “I’m working.” His eyes tracked up to her hair, then down the full length of the sweatshirt and lingered on her shoes. He didn’t even try to hide his smile.
She tapped a toe. “Burke has a son?”
“Uh-huh. David.”
“And David’s mother?”
“Michaela?”
“Michaela.” Lila chewed on her lip. “Great name.”
“Lila.”
“What?”
“I’m busy.”
“Sorry. Uh…this Michaela.”
Kurt’s brows rose. “Spit it out.”
“They’re not together, are they? Burke and Michaela?” She shuddered. “Please tell me they’re not together.” She grabbed Kurt by the shirtfront and dragged him down until they were nose to nose. “Is he married?”
Kurt pried her loose. “If he was married, would I have asked, not two hours ago, if you two were dating?”
“Good point.” She chewed her lip again. “Then again, my opinion of you is pretty low these days. You could be the kind of man who high-fives his buddy for having a wife and a girlfriend.”
Kurt sighed. “I thought you and I were cool now?”
“Yeah, yeah.” She patted his chest. “We’re cool. Well. I’m cool. You’re okay.”
“Let me see if I can understand what’s going on here. Because I’m busy, and I do need to get back out there. Preferably before closing tonight. Best I can figure, sometime between me leaving my house and you coming here, you found out that Burke has a son, and this is where you lose me. I can’t quite work out why finding out that Burke is a father would make you rush into my bar dressed like…whatever this is supposed to be.”
“Effortlessly chic is what this is, and I am rocking it.” She dared him with her glare to say otherwise.
He bounced his hand off the top of her perky ponytail. “Works for me, honey.”
“Ack.” She slapped him away. “You’re making it worse. As for Burke, I am merely seeking clarification on his realtor needs. I don’t have a problem with him having a son. I was worried he had a family and I was poised on the precipice of being a home-wrecker. I am not in the business of wrecking homes, Kurt. I am in the business of finding them.”
“Burke does have a family. He has David and he has me. His female needs, however, are currently unmet. Playing field is wide open. Go get him.”
“Wha…?” Lila took a long step back, opening her eyes wide. “Why would you even…? You can’t think that…? I don’t want…” Kurt was shaking his head at her. She slumped. “Fine. I think maybe I might like Burke.” She whispered it as a confession. She wasn’t sure who she was confessing to: herself, or Kurt.
She pondered.
Herself.
I like Burke. “I like him a little.” A lot. A whole lot. “It’s possible.” It’s definite. No mistake. I want him. “In more than a friends kind of way.” I want to kiss his face off.
“You think maybe you might?”
“Fine! I like Burke! There! Are you happy?”
“Yes.”
Lila wasn’t. Her heart was doing its best to pound out of her chest. “Why are you looking so smug?” she demanded.
Kurt laughed. “He’s crazy about you, Lila.”
“Burke is?”
“How have you not noticed?”
“He’s shy. He can be tough to read.”
Kurt grinned. “Yeah. Burke’s shy. Until he’s not. Same as he’s gentle, until you get in the ring with him, call him a few names, and wake up ten minutes later with a mild concussion and missing a tooth.” He tapped his jaw.
“What does that mean?”
“Guess you’ll find out, sooner or later.”
“I choose sooner. What does it mean? He’s going to sex me into a concussion? I might lose a tooth? Oh hell, that sounds fun. The sex concussion bit, not the tooth.”
“Come on, move your ass.” He scooted her out of his office.
“Kurt—”
“Try asking him to dinner,” Kurt said, propelling her ahead of him into the main bar.
“I can’t do that.”
“Sure you can. I know from personal experience.”
“This is different. I like Burke.”
“You have got to stop insulting me.”
“No, no. God, you’re sensitive. I wasn’t insulting you. I was saying I can’t just ask Burke out.”
“Why not?” Kurt was behind the bar.
I’m leaving Emerson. “I’m his realtor.”
“Realtor. Not his doctor or his lawyer. No ethical issues. Think you’re good to go.”
That, right there, was the problem.
She was going.
As soon as Lila found a job, she was out of here.
* * * *
Lila slid into her car and shivered. Burke’s sweatshirt was dark in big splotchy patches from the rain that had assaulted her as she’d bolted across the parking lot. Since it was already damp, she dragged the sleeve over her wet face, turned on the engine and pulled into traffic.
“Call Jenny,” she told her phone. Crap. Knee-jerk reaction. “Cancel! Cancel!” The phone beeped off.
Lila drove through quiet streets.
Burke was crazy about her.
The phone rang, the sudden jangle of noise in the silent car wrenching her from her thoughts. She glanced at the screen. Jenny.
She could ignore it, but Jenny Finley—Tate, Jenny Tate—did not take kindly to being ignored. Lila accepted the call. “What’s up, player?”
“Are you prank-calling me?”
“Uh, you called me. What are you doing calling this late, anyway? Shouldn’t you all be tucked up and fast asleep?”
“It’s nine thirty, Lila,” Jenny said. “And you called me first.”
“Nine thirty? Woah. You’re half an hour behind schedule. We’d better cut this short. Call me tomorrow!”
“Very funny.”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have called. I forgot.”
“Forgot what?” Jenny sounded genuinely puzzled.
That you have a whole life that doesn’t involve talking to me on the phone at all hours anymore.
“That I have to stop by Mom’s before I go home. I’m turning down her street now.” No, she wasn’t.
“Say hi for me, and make sure you come by tomorrow.”
“Will do. Any reason?”
“I need a reason to invite you over? Since when?”
“Since never.” Lila pitched her voice louder. “Hi, Mom. I’ll be right out!” She was still driving.
“I’m going,” Jenny said. “See you tomorrow!”
“Tomorrow. Love to Kate. Bye!”
Lila hung up and continued on to her parents’.
She’d dialed Jenny’s number ready to jump into it and blurt out Burke’s crazy about me and guess what I think I might be crazy about him, before remembering that Jenny had better things to be doing than listening to her freak out about a guy.
Her mother, on the other hand, was probably dozing over a stack of papers to grade, and would be thrilled with a visit from her beloved child.
Also, her mother had ice cream.
Twenty minutes later, Lila let herself in to her parents’ house and poked her head around the living room door. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hello, pumpkin,” her father said with distraction. He jerked upright and yelled at the screen, “For god’s sake, finish him! Are you seeing this, baby? He keeps letting this punk get back up! I could do better with one hand tied— Are you kidding me? Again?”
Lila smiled at her father, who was completely absorbed in the spectacle of a six-foot-three monster swinging a stocky and feisty opponent around the octagon. Her dad would also buy a ticket to the Burke vs. Kurt fight.
Although for very different reasons from Lila.
She wandered into the kitchen. “Hi, Mom.”
Her mother leaped up from her seat at the kitchen table where she was, as expected, snoozing over papers, and rushed across the room. She grabbed Lila into a hug. “My child. Oh, what a treat.”
“Always nice to hear. Mom. Mom. You’re squeezing me.”
Her mother added a side-to-side sway to her enthusiastic hug. “I’m getting all the cuddles I can while you’re still here. I’m not sorry.”
Hmm. Lila was starting to think that she’d have to buy her mother a puppy when she left, or send her parents on a cruise. Her mom was taking her imminent departure even harder than when Lila had left home for college.
“Got any ice cream?” Lila asked to distract her.
“Peanut butter cup. Sit, sit. I’ll get the bowls.”
Lila sat.
“Do you want me to throw that in the dryer?” her mother said as she dug around in the freezer for the ice cream. She came over to the table with bowls and spoons. “Your sweatshirt,” she said. “It’s damp.” Her eyes focused in on the sweatshirt. “And enormous.” She looked between the sweatshirt, the kitchen clock, and the ice cream and broke into a smile. “Is this about a boy?”
“Yup.” Lila dug into the tub, serving up the ice cream. “Make that a man. A whole lotta man.”
“Going by the size of the sweatshirt, I’ll say. Tell me everything.”
So Lila did, starting with their first meeting at the coffee shop and finishing up with Kurt’s revelation.
Burke’s crazy about you, Lila.
Her mom sighed. “It all sounds lovely,” she said. “When are you going to ask him out?”
“I’m not.”
Her mom sat up. “Why not?”
“I’m leaving, Mom. It’s too late. If I’d met him a few weeks ago, we could have started something. But it doesn’t make sense to start something when I’ve got one foot out the door.”
“Maybe you start something and it’s so great you pull that foot back inside the house and you shut the door. Maybe that happens.”
Then her mother would lock the door, deadbolt it, board it up, and Lila would never leave Emerson. “I have clearly chosen an unbiased and neutral party to share this dilemma with.”
“Unbiased, my ass. We both know I don’t want you to go. I support your decisions one hundred percent. I think you’re doing the right thing in going, if it’s what you want. Don’t expect me to like it.”
“Love you, Mom.”
Her mom dropped her head in her arms with an audible thunk. “I take it back. I withdraw my support. You’re making a terrible mistake. Don’t leave me.”
“Okay. Let it out.” Lila rubbed her back. “We’ve been through this before. You’ll accept it in time. Children grow up and leave. It’s the natural course of things.”
“Yes, the natural course,” her mother mumbled. “All is as it should be. I shall wither and decline, while you find a new life in an exciting city. Gonna be great.”
Lila was definitely buying her mom a puppy. A loud, boisterous one. It would be like having Lila as a toddler again.
“I still think you should ask this delightful-sounding man to dinner, at least.” Her mom sat up, dramatics over. She finished her ice cream. “One, you owe him because he cooked for you and returning the favor is simple good manners.”
“That’s blatant blackmail.”
Her mom grinned. “And two, you’re talking about dinner and maybe coffee after, not pledging your troth. Honey, did you stop to consider that, while Burke likes you, he might not be looking for anything serious, either?”
Lila swallowed the last mouthful of ice cream. “Hadn’t thought of that.”
Apparently, she’d been thinking that she was so irresistible, one bite of her peach was going to enslave him for all time.
Lila had decent self-esteem. She’d worked her butt off to build it up, after her hellish high-school years. However, her mother made a good argument.
When Lila thought about being with Burke, she’d gone straight to epic. She glanced at her mom. Where on earth would she have gotten that particular personality trait from? Instead of thinking of it as fun—as she had when she’d asked Kurt out—she’d seen them embarking upon a dramatic and unending relationship.
Burke is crazy about you, Kurt had said.
Consider the source. While “crazy about you” run through the Lila translation machine for some reason came out as “wants to be with you forever”, coming from Kurt, it probably meant nothing more serious than “wants to bang your brains out”.
Lila sucked her spoon clean.
Sounded fun.