“I take it you just found out,” Erasmo said.
With Avery at a loss for words, Shannon answered for her. “She pees on the stick in the morning.”
Avery gently hit her head against her folded arms.
“Can I say congratulations?” Victor asked Shannon.
Avery moaned.
Shannon laughed.
And the men lifted their glasses in a silent toast to the woman in denial.
Avery lifted her head long enough to glare. “I’m not the one with the biological clock ticking here—that’s you.”
Shannon offered a nervous glance toward Victor.
“If hormones are any indication, I’d say you can skip the pee stick in the morning,” Dylan said.
Avery must have caught on to what she was saying and backed up. “I’m a horrible friend. I’m sorry, Shannon. This week was supposed to be about you.”
Avery’s bombshell pulled the focus away from him and Shannon. Good thing, since he felt Shannon was pretty close to making an excuse to leave the table.
Their dinner was Mexico’s idea of barbeque, which meant open fire cooking of fresh fish and a big slab of beef. They had family-style service, with the table filled with sides and spices.
For the first time since Victor had met Shannon, she was silent and observant throughout the whole meal. Maybe she was pissed at her friend for pointing out his attraction, but he wanted to believe that it was her attraction to him that had Shannon miffed. He suspected that the biological clock comment was more to blame. Whatever it was, it kept her deep in her thoughts with only minimal comments about Avery’s pregnancy.
It was only when Avery started doubting her ability to be a parent that Shannon snapped out of her trance.
“I’m still a kid,” Avery started. “I can show my child how to skip school and spend their tuition on trips to places like this. How to sneak out of the house.”
“First of all, you’re not a kid, you’re thirty-three . . . didn’t we just talk about this?”
“Still a kid.”
Everyone denied Avery’s attachment to that argument.
“Second of all, you have so much more to teach your child than sneaking out of the house. If you have a girl, she’ll learn how to break a man’s arm before he can get to second base.”
Avery seemed to like that.
Shannon looked around the table. “Avery studies krav maga.”
“That explains the tattoo on your arm,” Erasmo said. The word warrior was illustrated with a small spider.
“You’re overprotective of those you love. You insisted on coming here this week for me.”
Avery nodded a few times. “That’s true.”
“You needed a bodyguard?” Victor asked.
“Not that, just . . .”
“Part of the girl code,” Avery continued for her. “We don’t go to clubs alone if we have a friend to come along. Keeps the creeps away or helps vet the guys you want to know.”
“So you were on the prowl this week?” Erasmo asked. “You should have told us, we could have helped.”
Victor didn’t think Shannon’s face could turn redder.
She started to shake her head.
Avery stopped her. “Girl, your face isn’t gonna lie for you.”
“Okay. Fine. I’m single. I’m allowed.”
They all laughed.
Victor and Dylan exchanged a look. The woman was on the prowl all right. But did she want a seven-pound reminder of her trip to Tulum?
“You still have time,” Avery told her. “There’s a couple cute guys at the bar.”
They all turned their heads.
Victor frowned.
“Are you talking about the blond guy that looks like he lives on a surfboard?” Shannon asked.
“He is cute,” Dylan said.
“He’s twelve,” Shannon pointed out.
“He’s drinking at a bar, I doubt that,” Victor said.
“Okay, eighteen . . . we are in Mexico.”
He looked more like midtwenties to Victor.
“If he’s single and straight, you could tap that in ten minutes,” Avery challenged.
“You know you sound like a dude, right?” Erasmo asked Avery.
“Hey, women talk as much smack as men.”
Victor saw the game as it was rolling out. He also noticed how Shannon started rubbing her hands on her thighs. He’d bet money that she wouldn’t even try hitting on Mr. College Kid on Spring Break.
“I’d have given my left nut for a lady like you when I was his age,” Victor said.
Shannon snapped her eyes to his. “Are you suggesting I hit on him?”
He couldn’t believe the next words out of his mouth. “I can’t ask you out for three months, apparently. A lot can change in three months.” Like she could find someone to take care of that biological ticking clock. Suddenly his challenge sat like acid in his stomach.
The table went silent.
Shannon pushed back from the table and came to her feet.
Victor’s mouth went dry.
There was no way . . .
“Challenge accepted.”
She’ll turn around.
She’ll turn around . . .
Oh, damn, she isn’t turning around.
Chapter Sixteen
Damp palms and a racing heart . . . you’d think she was at a junior high school formal, asking the popular boy to dance.
The eyes from everyone at Shannon’s table bored into her back as she approached Surfer Boy.
Hearing Avery’s words in her head, Shannon moved in beside her target and leaned against the counter as if she were attempting to gain the bartender’s attention. “I hope you don’t mind me squeezing in,” she said over the noise of the bar.
Surfer Boy turned her way midsentence with his buddy, did a double take, and blew off his friend.
She pushed her hair over her shoulder and smiled.
“Well, hello.” As hellos went, his was suggestive.
“Hello.” She smiled and ignored the nerves jumping in her gut. Okay, so he wasn’t eighteen . . . but it was highly possible he was in his early twenties. Very cute, but cute being the key word. His gaze did a quick up and down. Not gay, she concluded.
“I’m Steve.” He put his hand out to hers.
“Shannon.” She reached out to shake his hand, and he turned it around and kissed the back of it. She wanted to find the gesture endearing, but all it did was make her want to laugh. Like where had he learned that? TV? Netflix?
“You’re stunning,” he said with a wink.
She took her hand back, placed it against her chest. “You’re sweet.” Okay, okay . . . she’d proved her point. The last thing she wanted to do was lead this kid on only to cut him off.
“What are you drinking?” he asked.
“Margaritas, but I can buy my own drink.”
He reached out and placed a hand on her arm.
She looked over her shoulder to see if her party was watching. Three sets of eyes were pinned.
Victor was gone.
“Let me buy you one. It’s our first night here,” he said.
Without being terribly obvious, she wiggled out from under Steve’s hand.
“Is that right? How long will you be here?” Shannon smiled at her admirer and glanced away.
Where is Victor?
“A week. Then it’s back to the grind.”
“Work?”
Steve shook his head. “School. One more year and I’ll be out.”
The bartender stopped in front of them.
“The lady will have a margarita.”
She tried to wave the bartender off. “It’s okay, I can—”
Steve reached for her hand and placed it on the bar. “I insist.”
Okay, no more touching.
She pulled away.
“There you are!” Victor appeared behind her, a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
She sighed in relief.
“Is she bugging you, young man?” Victor asked Steve.
Steve dropped his hand, his smile gone. “Excuse me?”
Victor turned Shannon toward him, both hands on her shoulders. “Do you really want to blow sixty-two days of sobriety now? You’ve come so far.” His eyes twinkled with amusement.
Lost for words, Shannon stared and blinked.
Victor placed an arm over Shannon’s shoulders and glanced at Steve. “It took me six months to get her into AA.”
Steve stiffened when the bartender delivered the margarita.
All three of them looked at it.
Victor reached into his pocket, tossed a few bills on the counter, grabbed Shannon’s hand, and dragged her away.
“AA? Really?” she asked when they could no longer be overheard.
Victor didn’t answer, he just kept moving. She had to jog to keep up with him. Instead of heading back to their table, he pulled her toward the beach, away from the people, the music . . . the lights.
“Slow down.”
Victor stopped without warning, and she ran into him.
The amusement in his eyes was replaced by something much more heated. “How far would you have gone?”
“What?”
“With the twelve-year-old? How far?”
Oh my God, what was he accusing her of? “He wasn’t twelve, and hello . . . you challenged me.”
“Is that all it takes? A dare?”
His angry questions made her blood boil. She snapped her hand out of his. “You started it.”
“He was pawing you.”
“He was trying to pick me up.”
“And getting somewhere, apparently.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What is this? Jealousy?”
Victor opened his mouth, closed it.
“You have no right to be jealous. I’ve known you for what, six days? All you’ve done was toss a couple compliments and flirtatious barbs. If I want to hook up with College Boy, I will!”
Victor’s nose flared, tension snapped in the air.
“Fine,” he gritted out between his teeth.