Here I was, on my first baby-free night in months, and I was staring at a guy like he was a snow cone in August. Get a grip, Heidi.
“No, my name’s really Bond. Bond Klein.”
It was familiar, but at that moment, one of the keg guys lost control of his stomach and started throwing up on the rug in the middle of the living room, meaning everyone standing around it moved backward, almost crushing me against the wall.
Grabbing Jenny’s hand, I nodded at the door. “That’s our cue to leave.”
I wanted to look back and see what Bond was doing or just see him one last time, but I didn’t.
Until we walked out of the door and were turning toward the elevators, then I looked behind us and blushed when I saw him watching me.
There went my only sexual buzz until Nemi hit eighteen—the age I’d decided I’d allow myself to start dating again. Not my age, I’d passed eighteen years ago, but her age. I’d made a promise to myself that I’d dedicate one hundred percent of my attention to her until then, and unless a guy came along who made me break that promise—which would be unlikely—eighteen it was.
But the slight flirting had been a boost for me, so I’d survive on that for the next sixteen years and three months.
I dropped Jenny off at home, giving Marisol a wink as she lectured her daughter, and went home. I didn’t pick up the book I’d been reading. No, I went straight to bed and fell asleep almost immediately, dreaming of a gladiator who looked like Bond. It was hot and left me a cranky bitch the next morning, but as I had my first coffee of the day and was mid coffeegasm, the reason his name was familiar was because I knew about him and his brothers.
The only ones I’d come into contact with were Jarrod and Reid, but the rumors of the other two were well known. Party boys who’d turned business owners when they’d opened their restaurant and bar in town, Kleins. After last night, apparently, you could take the boy out of the partying, but you couldn’t take the partying out of the boy.
Shaking my head to clear it, I checked the time on the Alexa device in the kitchen and got to work. There was no use crying over disappointing Bonds.
Chapter Two
Bond
Last year my brother, Canon, and I had decided to open a restaurant. We’d spent years working toward setting up a business together and had saved like crazy for the start-up capital for it. The opening of the restaurant and bar was huge for us and we’d made it a tribute to our family, but it was also the end of an era.
Well, it was meant to be the end of an era, an immature and dickish one, but that fancy dress party I’d gone to had been a lapse in judgment.
I’d regretted going to it thirty minutes after I’d gotten there, but those were my friends from high school, and I’d figured it would play out way differently than it had. Then again, if I hadn’t gone to it, I wouldn’t have met Heidi.
That meeting had been an eye-opening experience for me, and it felt like I’d finally made peace with letting go of the happy-go-lucky Bond.
“So, the guys were doing keg stands and races, and she saw all of it,” Canon repeated as he looked over something at his desk. Looking up, he scratched his chin. “And you think it’s some sort of kismet?”
When I nodded, he frowned. “Man, she saw Bill puke on the rug, and you told her you were dressed as a condom. I doubt she thinks fate has jack shit to do with it—at least, not in a good way. At least you didn’t puke at the same time. There’s that small piece of good fortune, I guess.”
“That’s because you’re a negative twat, Canon. You look at things and see a glass half empty instead of one that’s half full.” He jiggled his head, conceding I was right on that point. “She saw me at a party I didn’t belong at, and Bill puked while I was pointing out to the girl that she didn’t want to end up like that.”
He’d just opened his mouth when the door opened, and our sister-in-law poked her head around it.
“Knock, knock. The lady you wanted to see is here.”
Katy and Jarrod had gotten married last year, and it’d been the weirdest—but still beautiful—wedding I’d ever been to. I hadn’t known her grandmother for long, but even I’d choked up when I’d seen her wig in a plastic box. See? Totally weird and beautiful. Maude had made an impact on everyone who’d known her, even those of us who’d only been gifted a small amount of time with her.