Asshole.
“Oh no. Then I might have to come over and hold his hand for a bit.” Miranda’s expression made it clear that she’d be holding a lot more than his hand.
She gave Seth a quick kiss on the cheek and then she was gone, leaving him free to interrogate his roommate.
“You want to hang out with her kids?”
“Yeah. What’s wrong with that? Those little dudes are tons of fun.”
Seth crossed his arms over his chest. “Should I be worried about websites putting a little green dot over our house to indicate there’s a sexual predator living here?” he cracked.
“Fuck you.”
“Says the man who just arranged a date with two children while wearing a towel. Seriously, what the hell was that about?”
After a beat, Dylan released a breath. “I have an idea for the birthday present, all right?”
“No clue what you’re talking about, man.”
“Miranda’s birthday is on Saturday.”
“It is?”
His roommate raised his eyebrows. “Do you know anything about the woman you’re screwing, bro?”
Now it was his turn to say, “Fuck you.” He trailed after Dylan, whose bare feet slapped the hardwood floor on the way to the master bedroom.
Dylan dropped the towel the moment he entered his bedroom, but Seth was too unsettled by this entire discussion to pay much attention to his roommate’s bare ass.
“Anyway, remember when they were crashing here after the flood and the kids kept bursting into tears every other second?”
“Yeah,” he said warily.
“Well, turns out they weren’t just crying for the hell of it. They were working on a birthday present for Miranda—they drew all these pictures for her, and they were organizing them into a book. I think their teacher was supposed to help them bind it.”
Seth’s brows dipped in a frown. “How do you know all this?”
“They told me.” Dylan put on a pair of sweatpants and strode to his closet to find a shirt.
“They told you,” Seth echoed.
“Yep. Those kids love me, bro. Maybe because, unlike you, I don’t treat them like I’d rather have my back waxed than spend time with them.” A shrug. “They were pretty devastated, especially Jason. He was hiding the pictures under his bed and everything got destroyed in the flood.”
“So you’re taking them out for ice cream to cheer them up?”
“No. See, that’s the thing.” The guy was practically beaming now. “I was telling Jen about what a bummer it was that the present got ruined, and she came up with an idea. Sophie and Jason won’t have time to redo all those drawings, but Jen offered to take their picture. You’ve seen her photographs, right? They’re f**king amazing. She said she’ll take a whole bunch of photos of the kids and they could use them to make a new book. Good idea, right?”
Seth stared at his buddy.
“What?” Dylan said defensively.
“You liked those kids so much that you actually spent time thinking about the birthday present they were making for their mother?” he said in a dull voice.
“So? What’s wrong with that? I happen to be a nice guy.”
Translation: I’m not an ass**le like you are.
Seth raked a hand through his hair, wishing he could make heads or tails of the eddy of emotion that swirled inside his chest. Shit, what was happening to him? Why did it matter whether Dylan liked Miranda’s kids? Why should he care that Sophie and Jason had confided in his roommate—and not him—about that stupid picture book? Whatever. Let Dylan spend tomorrow afternoon with the rugrats. That just meant Seth got more time with their mother.
An entire afternoon with Miranda. Just him and Miranda.
Yeah. Miranda. Whose birthday is on Saturday.
His stomach clenched. Why hadn’t she told him when her birthday was?
Why hadn’t he asked?
Holy shit. If one more why so much as entered his brain, he was going to punch something.
Curling his hands into fists, he left his roommate to get dressed and marched back to his bedroom.
His sheets still smelled like Miranda. His pillow still bore the indentation of her head. And his heart? Well, his heart was having a very tough time remembering that it played no part in their deal.
“Oh my gosh, they are just the cutest,” Jen Scott declared. She peered at the screen of her heavy-duty digital camera and giggled. “Look at this one. Sophie looks adorable.”
Dylan leaned in for a peek. “Adorable indeed.”
“I love how she kept insisting on changing her hairstyle at each location.” Jen started clicking through the insane amount of photos she’d snapped today. “Pigtails, pigtails…ponytail…hair loose…oh wait, here’s my favorite, the ballerina bun.”
The two of them were sitting side by side on Jen’s couch, trying to pick which shots to send to Kinko’s for printing. At Jen’s suggestion, Miranda’s twins had decided to create a calendar for their mom, each month featuring a different picture of them. Dylan and Jen were footing the cost, unbeknownst to the twins, who just assumed professional calendars got made for free. But the kids were so excited about the project that Dylan was willing to pay for the whole damn thing if need be.
“This was a really fun day,” Jen said happily, reaching for the iced tea glass on the coffee table. “Being around such cuteness kinda makes you want to have kids of your own, doesn’t it?”