Ty laughed and Ryder couldn’t help but grin. Suzanne always had a crazy way with words.
It was too much for Nikki. She just frowned, then resumed chewing the plain iceberg lettuce she was eating. It was meant to serve as a topper for the fajitas, but she was just eating it all by itself and nothing else.
Ryder looked at Ty and said, “Dude.”
Ty gave him a sheepish grin. “I’m not in it for the conversation, that’s for sure.”
“I hear ya.”
“You’re both pigs,” Suzanne said.
Ryder was suddenly tired of the whole self-righteous act from his ex. “Why? Because we’re just honest about it? And for the record, if a chick says she just wants sex, all you women are like, ‘Woo hoo, you go girl, take what you want.’ But we do it and we’re pigs.”
“I’ve never known a woman who will tolerate grating stupidity just for sex. When women go for sex only, usually they do find something intriguing about the guy besides his penis.
And talk about double standards . . . when a woman just wants to get it on, everyone calls her a slut.”
It was his fault for opening the door to the argument, but Ryder still didn’t feel like backing down. This was supposed to be his victory party and Suzanne had been kind of mean to him all night. He didn’t like feeling her bite when he hadn’t done anything wrong. “So you’re telling me that in between riding his jock, you found Carl intriguing? That’s amazing, because I didn’t think he could string two words together beyond ‘pass me the chewin’ tobacca. ’ ”
Throwing out the name of the first guy Suzanne had dated post-divorce was asking for fajita innards tossed in his face, but Suzanne just turned an interesting shade of red and mutilated her paper napkin.
“Who’s Carl?” Nikki asked.
“Just eat your damn lettuce,” Suzanne said. Then her shoulders slumped when Nikki looked like she’d been slapped. Suzanne said, “I’m sorry, Nikki, I didn’t mean to snap at you.
Ryder has just made me furious. Men can be so stupid.”
“Oh, that’s so true,” Nikki agreed, giving a frown in Ty’s direction. “Men are horrible.”
Ty sat back in his chair and held his hands up. “What? What did I do?”
“The question is, what haven’t you done?” Nikki asked darkly.
The sunny and vacant blonde looked suddenly satanic. Ryder immediately felt better. The night was bound to get even more entertaining.
TAMARA bent over to retrieve her panties and tried to keep herself from smiling. She should be shocked, appalled at herself, ashamed really, that she had done something so completely tacky as to have a quickie with Elec in Ryder’s bathroom in the middle of a dinner party. But it just felt too good to feel bad. That had been amazing sex, and she knew beyond a doubt that if Elec wanted to have a repeat performance, she would let him.
He was grinning at her as he tucked everything back in and rubbed his hand over the top of his head to flatten his hair. “Now that’s the kind of victory celebration I’m talking about.”
She couldn’t help but smile back at him. “Congratulations.”
“Why, thank you, darlin’.”
“And a positive side effect is that my headache is gone.” Tamara tried to smooth out her hair, which was probably a lost cause. She threw it back up into a lumpy ponytail and called it good. “Thank you for the massage.”
“Oh, it was my pleasure. Whenever your head hurts, you just call me and I’ll see what I can do.”
Now there was the best form of pain relief she could imagine.
Tamara tugged the bottom of her T-shirt down and adjusted her skirt so everything was all back where it needed to be and wondered if she had blown it with Elec by canceling their date, then arguing with him about it. Because now that she had gone for round two with him, she couldn’t even remember why it had made sense to cancel in the first place. What exactly was she so worried about?
They weren’t talking long term or serious. It was just casual dating and, clearly, lots of really great sex. She wanted that, deserved that, needed that. As long as it didn’t affect her children, why couldn’t she enjoy herself instead of staying home every Saturday trying to make do with batteries?
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” she told him wryly.
“I’m that kind of guy.” Elec pulled a loose hair off her lip and tossed it in the sink. “Guess we need to go back out there, huh?”
“Guess so.” Tamara hesitated, annoyed with herself. Was she really going to go back out there without telling him she wanted to go out with him, on her terms?
Elec squeezed her hand and turned around.
She couldn’t let him just walk out, nor could she blame him for not asking her out yet again. He probably didn’t want to ruin the satisfying moment between them, and he had to be feeling a little rejected.
So she said, “Elec, if the offer still stands, I’ll go to dinner with you.”
He stopped and turned around, his mouth breaking out into a crooked smile. “Really? Well, alright then. That’s very cool.”
Now she had to be clear about what she wanted, yet somehow tactful. “Can we go to your place?”
“We can go wherever you want.”
“Can we be . . . discreet?” That didn’t sound great, but she didn’t know how else to put it.
She had thought he would question her further, but he didn’t and she refused to analyze what that meant. Hopefully it just meant he understood her reasoning. Not that she’d given him any.
But Elec just said, “Okay. We can do that. You want me to cook dinner for you?”
“You cook?” Not that it mattered. She wasn’t in this for the food, and if it meant they would not be seen in public together, she was definitely on board with that.
“I can handle myself in the kitchen. Nothing fancy, but I can manage.”
“That would be nice.” And now she suddenly felt shy for some stupid reason. “So Mondays probably work best for you, right?”
“Yep. Does early or later work better for you with getting a sitter?”
Yeah, her children. She needed to do something with them. “Can I let you know?”
“Of course.” Elec gave her a soft kiss. “Now we really should get back.”
This ought to be fun. Tamara tried really hard not to blush as they went back out through Ryder’s bedroom and reappeared in the dining room. Four pairs of eyes looked at them curiously and it was obvious that everyone knew what had gone down. Well, everyone except for Nikki.