I don’t know if it was her screaming again or a high-pitched scream came out of my own mouth. I stood up as my pants lit up like a Christmas tree.
Ash grabbed her glass of wine.
“Ash don’t…”
She flung the contents at me. Luckily she missed completely because she would have made the fire way worse. But the wine somehow went right into my face. Fuck.
“Ash!” I screamed as I blindly reached for the tablecloth to smother the fire.
She finally seemed to understand and started whacking the front of my pants with the tablecloth as I wiped the wine out of my eyes.
Oof. It felt like I was about to barf as her hand collided with my nuts. Hard. I looked down as she continued to slap my junk with the tablecloth.
“I’m so so sorry,” she said when the fire was finally out. “I think it’s okay.” She moved the burnt up flap of my dress pants to the side to see my barely singed boxer briefs. “It feels like it’s okay. I think your pants took the worst of it.” She patted the front of my boxers and then seemed to realize what she was doing. She froze with her hand pressed against me.
And we both just stood there. Me with wine dripping from my eyelashes and half singed off pants. The whole restaurant could see my boxers and her hand on me.
“I’m just going to…” she removed her hand from my cock and pointed over her shoulder. And then she ran away as fast as she could.
I didn’t call after her. She’d just tried to set my fucking dick on fire. This was why I didn’t tell people about Brooklyn.
Chapter 18
Sunday
All our friends were here to watch the big Giants/Eagles game. All paired up in couples. Today I was lucky to be the eleventh wheel. Eleventh. I wish I was kidding. But the games at James and Penny’s place always included all my friends, plus Penny’s old college friends Tyler and Melissa and their significant others. At least James and Rob’s sister, Jen, wasn’t here with Ian. Then I would have been the thirteenth wheel.
I’d extended the invite to Tanner but he was busy today. Something about a Club Onyx emergency. I was pretty sure he was just trying to get me to offer to come help. He’d been trying to get me to join Club Onyx for ages, but I wasn’t really interested. If that club really was about trying to find true love, then it wasn’t the place for me. And some fake emergency wasn’t going to get me through the doors.
So yeah, eleventh wheel. At least all the kids were here, and that gave me some little people to hang out with. I was sitting on the floor doing a puzzle with Scarlett. She loved puzzles. And honestly she was better at them than me. But I didn’t mind helping her.
“Uncle Matt, why is your hand blue?” She poked a splotch of paint by my watch that I hadn’t been able to get out.
I adjusted my watch to help hide the mark. “An accident with some blueberries.”
She giggled and stole the puzzle piece in my hand that I’d been holding a few seconds too long apparently. She plopped it in the right place and looked up at me. “Please don’t get paint on my puzzle. You can play with Sophie’s puzzle instead. Hers has a sky so it’s okay if you get blue on it.”
That was a very good reason. But I think her actual reasoning was that it was Sophie’s puzzle that would get ruined and not hers. Sneaky little devil. “I’m not going to get paint on your puzzle, kiddo.”
She looked like she was scrutinizing me. “Promise?”
“Pinky promise.” I held out my pinky to her.
She wrapped her pinky around mine, we shook, and the promise was made. For a few more minutes she seemed content, silently putting a few more pieces in for every one of mine. “Could you get me a snackie?” she asked.
I looked over at the coffee table that was covered in game day snacks. All of which she could reach. What was I, her man servant? But instead of complaining, I just asked her what she wanted.
“Two juice boxes, please,” she said.
“Two?”
“Mhm.” She didn’t look at me as she put some more puzzle pieces in the appropriate spots.
“Why two?”
“Because I neeeeeed two.”
Whatever you want, kiddo. It wasn’t like I had to deal with her getting all hyped up for the rest of the day. Besides, I was pretty sure one of them was supposed to be for me. I got up off the floor and wandered over to the coffee table. I’d actually been avoiding the grownups. The last thing I wanted was to talk about my disaster of a date in front of all these happy couples. Luckily no one was paying me much attention as I grabbed two juice boxes.
I turned around and saw that Tyler’s son, Axel, had stolen my seat beside Scarlett. I sighed. Apparently the kids were starting to pair off too. Well, at least those two. Axel had always seemed smitten with Scarlett. And vice versa. I glanced over to James, who was watching his daughter and Axel playing. He had a scowl on his face. At least Scarlett hadn’t ditched him for Axel like she’d just ditched me. I looked at the two juice boxes in my hand, now certain one of them wasn’t for me. Scarlett had literally sent me away to fetch the two of them a beverage. She’d conned me.
I shook my head and walked back over to them. “Your juice boxes, madam,” I said with a slight bow.
She giggled. “Thank you.” She grabbed both and then handed one to Axel.
Ouch. I wasn’t really offended. It was actually cute. Even though she was a manipulative little thing. She’d probably waved him over as soon as I stood up.
“Let me know if you two need anything else,” I said.
I sat down next to Rob’s daughter, Sophie, instead. “Hey, Soph.”
She’d abandoned her puzzle. Well, kind of. She was building a 3D house with the pieces instead. I lifted up a piece to help.
She grabbed my hand. “Uncle Matt, don’t. You’ll make it fall.”
I laughed. “I’m not going to make it fall, Soph. Look.” I gently placed a piece on top of her makeshift house. And the whole thing fell over. Shit. “Sorry, let me…” I reached for a piece to start the building over.
But instead of letting me take one, she reached both her arms out and raked the pieces back toward her. “No thank you,” she said.
“Come on, I won’t make it fall again. I was just getting used to it.”
“Go play with my daddy instead. He’s bad at houses too.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I knew when I’d been dismissed. Soph and Scarlett had both refused to entertain me today. Apparently I was the outcast in this social group too.
“Later, Soph,” I said and patted her head.
She ignored me, her little tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on her construction.
I walked over to my friends and sat down in an empty spot next to Tyler. Probably because out of everyone here, he was the only one who wouldn’t ask me how my dating life was going. “Hey,” I said.
Tyler cursed under his breath as the Eagles fumbled. He was an Eagles fan like Penny since they both grew up close to Philly. “Hey, Matt,” he said when he calmed down. “The kids giving you a hard time?”
I laughed. “Just the usual.”
Tyler turned his head to glance over at Axel and Scarlett silently doing the puzzle. “I always wonder if they’re up to no good when they’re quiet.”