A LEG swung over the chair. Myah glanced up in time to observe a lean, eye-pleasing frame fold into the low, metal seat saddle-style. Nibbling the edge of her cheeseburger, she scanned stocky tufts of dark hair dying to be finger combed now that he’d removed his knit cap. A scruffy goatee had formed over the last two days.
As he divvied out his food for himself, Myah ran her eyes up and down the rest of the vision. Below the sleeve of his grey t-shirt, a tattoo of something circular with a point near the bottom peeked out at the hem. Three closed piercings decorated the shell of each ear, two extra on his left lobe.
Well, gaw-aw-aw-ly. She didn’t know where to start being impressed. Look at him. When did he turn into such a rebel work of art? Pushed out of her element, she squirmed from confused sentiments. She couldn’t react this way, he was just a work colleague, but he must not know that good looks frictioned with enigmatic behavior created a magnet for female attention. She glanced around.
Keir froze unwrapping his sandwich. “Something wrong?”
When she turned back, she moved her head in a tight shake. “Nothing.” She must have stared too long. He stared back, so she swerved her eyes from his searching gaze, checked on Dylan, then gave the man half of her attention. “I’m fine.” Barely. Keir had transformed from ‘just some guy’ at work to ‘mouth-watering man-candy’ on a busted high thermometer.
“I thought I made you uncomfortable earlier with Dylan.”
Au contraire. Dylan had been as happy as a clam. A comfy Dylan made a comfy mommy. To sit across from a man who got cuter by the second, well, treacherous. A humble superiority about him made her want to float into his all-consuming space, more so that she had paid closer attention to the mirror this morning. Oh, forget that.
She took a deep breath. “Excuse me.” She gave thanks for her food before another glance at him made her unsure if he’d just lifted his head from prayer as well. Lowering her eyes, she sipped her drink.
Another tattoo climbed out the T’s neck on his left collarbone. Great biceps and bared arms led her down to the wide, black leather strap of his wristwatch. Capable fingers drummed the table. Once.
The tell-tale sign told her she’d been caught in her not-so-subtle appraisal. She wanted to melt from embarrassment, but in for a penny, in for a pound. Myah remained on his fingers. They’d hadn’t shaken hands when they met. What would that have been like? The pressure of holding his hand?
He had clean nails. Or as clean as she’d seen a mechanic’s. For an odd reason, that impressed her. A few scratches decorated his fingers and knuckles, but… Oh. Wow. What was that?
Keir’s left middle finger sported a stunning silver ring. On one end, light diamond and circular Celtic etchings were broken by three ribs inlaid with a black, matte finish. It must have been three quarters of an inch wide. Not quite the rock star ring she’d imagined he’d have, but a beautiful one.
Behind him, Dylan’s sluggish activity caught her eye. Keir must have seen her distraction, he turned to look over his shoulder. Attentive. Dropping his half-eaten pie, he rose and slipped through to the next room. He held the door open. When he had Dylan’s attention, he waved his hand once to come over. Her son didn’t need to be asked twice, he followed her work colleague and took up the seat next to her.
She’d taken Dylan to the bathroom already, but wiped his hands before he dove his fingers into everything on the table. Ever one with curiosity, he kept his eyes glued on Keir as she watched him masticate his meal.
“I remember you said he doesn’t get out much. Is it that he doesn’t enjoy his play dates?”
Knowing it was hard to see, Myah, occupied Dylan with the toy from his meal before she explained. “He’s fine as long as he knows I’m near. I guess he feels safe enough to do some exploring on his own.”
“Aren’t all kids like that? As long as they see their parent they’re free to engage in some activity for a while.”
She propped her chin onto her clasped hands. “Did you see him in there?”
“Yeah. The kid can climb. He was having a blast.”
“With who?”
Keir’s forehead wrinkled. He looked unsure.
She nodded. “He loves it in there, he loves meeting kids, but he won’t play with them. He does his own thing, remains a loner in a roomful of activity partners.” Now that she’d told yet another grown up, sadness took over. “I don’t know what to do.” Dylan needed socialization, she didn’t want her baby to be the odd one out.
“Is he in daycare?”
She peeked at the little face she loved so much, his father’s nose and mouth, her eyes and bone structure. She shook her head. “I can’t afford daycare right now. He has a regular babysitter and one part time. But even with the kids he sees at Sunday school every week, he doesn’t connect. He sits with a toy and plays by himself.”
“So you’re worried he has no social life when you don’t put him out there with peers on a regular basis?” Keir leaned forward, half sideways, to meet Dylan eye to eye. The boys grinned at each other while he continued to speak. “He’s pretty articulate. Wait ’till he’s in school, he’ll be fine. He just needs a crowd on a consistent basis.”
Dylan laughed with a disgusting mouthful of food, and snorted through his nostrils. Myah couldn’t reprimand him for the uncouth behavior. She rolled her eyes and cupped her face to observe her son interact with a stranger.
She’d considered his problem stemmed from being denied a consistent crowd, but she didn’t have a crowd to provide. Did that mean he had to suffer until he started daycare in September?
He offered his new friend a fry, stretching out his stubby arm not even half way over the table surface. Myah expected Keir to take the offering and pretend to munch. Her heart leapt when Keir lunged his upper body across the table and snatched the fry between his teeth, adding a kid-ferocious growl that made Dylan convulse with laughter. She swallowed a surprised sound that hit her chest. She tamped it down enough to look civil.
Dylan and Keir repeated their fun. Gra-cious.
Myah touched her throat and nearly groaned. She swallowed. Who is this man, and why isn’t he a married father? On the third go, Keir opened his mouth to receive the food, but the fry came flying dangerously close to her nostril instead. The unsteady hand shoved it between her lips to buck against a tooth and her gums.
Already glued to Keir’s softly parted mouth when his soul-searching eyes rested on her, she couldn’t digest the emotion he’d snapped open inside. Reluctant to pose in the same fashion, heat ran up her body. She swatted at the fry and salty taste clinging to her lips. “That’s enough, Dylan.”
Myah refused to give direct eye contact to the strange man as he pushed himself upright across the table. She thought he licked salt from his own lips. She remained unprepared for the sensation it roused. She used a moist napkin to wipe Dylan’s hands and focused on feeding him.
All too soon, energy returned, he sought permission back to the Jumbo Room. Keir was kind enough to escort him. He’d mentioned nieces and nephews, but she wondered if he’d fathered children of his own. No one became that attentive without having a committed relationship. Or being a pedophile.
She didn’t know what to do with that thought, but would listen closely to whatever he had to say.
He eased back into his seat and picked up his hamburger. “He looks like a happy kid. He may be a loner, but he’s confident with it.”
“Thanks.”
“I used to be the same. Got teased all the time.”
“That’s awful.”
He laughed. “By my brother and sister. It’s worse when it comes from inside the ranks. But they’d beat up anybody else who tried.”
With a fond look and open manner, he talked about his siblings, who were older, and their families. She discovered his comfort around kids stemmed from when his brother and niece lived with him for a year. He called it being a half-father and had a serious respect for the responsibility. He talked about his niece as if she were his own.
Myah shared her morning trial of no babysitter, and how she’d forgotten her cooler of snacks at home, which left her to spend the last few hours with a cranky, restless child. The vending machine’s bag of chips helped tide him over only so far.
When she told him the major problem had been an ill-fitted starter jostled by potholes and too much time on the road, he laughed. She liked his face, how lit with that gorgeous smile. A couple of young women turned and tried one of their own, flipping their hair to catch his attention. Inwardly, Myah rolled her eyes. Did she look like chopped liver?
Keir’s finger scratched invisible patters on the tabletop, and he followed up her fiasco with his story of how he once lost his watch in the guts of a sports coupe.
“Ever lose that?” She pointed her half sandwich at the remarkable ring. “I like it. I guess it comes off with every job.”
He shrugged. “Thanks. And, yeah, for some.” After a minute, throughout which he stared at her the entire time, he munched on a couple of fries, and wiped his hands. “It was a gift.”
“So you don’t want to admit you’d buy something like that for yourself?” Then it sank in. This had the makings of a woman behind it. She had bought a fancy watch for her brother last Christmas. They weren’t cheap. “Sterling silver?”
He stared at her more and—perhaps in a subconscious twist—curled his fist to his body as if to hide it. “Titanium and tungsten.”
Tite-what? Weren’t wedding bands made of that stuff? Somebody loved him a lot. Myah paused from a much-needed sip of her soda, her straw just under her lip. “It’s beautiful. It’s meant to last.”
“That’s the idea.”
And you probably wear it all the time when you’re not working. Absorbing the news, she glanced at the people around them. Did anyone know she lunched with a taken man? That thing on his finger had been given for him to cherish. People cared to buy a gift like that, and it living on his finger meant he cared for the person in return.
He didn’t live in the area but came to see someone.
Setting her cup down, she scanned her happy neighbors. What did I expect? He’s a work colleague, and I look like crap without makeup so it’s not like he’s hitting on me. He had a girlfriend or some significant other, and he’d paid for her lunch. That in itself shouldn’t mean anything, the acts of a kind man. But it did. And the woman probably looked like Amy.
Silence rested between them. Get over it. You shouldn’t be here. He sure liked staring at her. She wished he wouldn’t, she didn’t think she could hide her embarrassment for long.
She glanced at a gleeful Dylan and tried to smile when he laughed heartily at her. Nothing would coax her back to the situation that brought him here. She’d held the title of the Holding Pattern Princess before; friendly guy, liked being around her, married the other woman he’d been courting without her knowledge. The sweet one who didn’t put out to him.
Myah had no qualms about getting up, taking her son and walking out the door. A free lunch didn’t make her a slave of any social obligation to be polite. She’d never again feel she owed a favor because a man spent money on her.
“For my twenty-fifth birthday.” Keir’s words caught her attention, his steady eyes held it there. “My parents gave it to me.” He stared at it, then twisted the ring. “Once in a while I gotta’ wear it all the time. You know?”
She nodded, then realized she didn’t really know. “Reminds you of how much you love them and they love you?”
His eyes twitched, an almost imperceptible movement. “Something like that.” Which sounded like, “Nothing like that,” but he was being polite.
“So, it’s not one of those Celtic promise-ringy thingies.”
Eyebrows rose. He smiled. “Claddagh. No. Why would you ask that?” He didn’t have to look so smug or lick his lip in his curiosity.
“Just checking,” she shot back.
A shrug. “All right.” He almost sang it.
“No big deal.”
He shook his head. “Didn’t say it was.”
“Okay, then.”
“N’okay,” came the high, disbelieving reply.
Heated by her unfounded jealousy, she frowned at the non-disguised grin. “You don’t have to act like that, or have the last word all the time.”
Chewing the final morsel of his burger, he crumpled the wrapper and conspicuously ignored her as he looked over their surroundings. Silent, the self-satisfied smirk not helping matters, he flashed up his eyebrows at her in self-confidence.
When she said he didn’t have to have the last word, she should have included silent communication. “I didn’t mean anything. It’s no big deal. I just needed to clear the air that you don’t have a wife-in-waiting while we’re having a meal together. For her sake, that would bother me.”
He stood, grabbed his drink by its top, and meandered to the Plexiglas. Leaning a shoulder on it, he threw her a glance, smiled again, then turned back to watch Dylan master the slide. Cheeky punk.