“In the same clothes you wore last night?”
Good point. He looked at the flannel shirt his brother was wearing over a T-shirt. Flannel wasn’t usually his style, but he was desperate. “Give me your shirt.”
“Hell no.”
“I’ll give you fifty bucks for it.”
“Give me your truck.”
“Kiss my ass.”
Josh shrugged. “Then put on your dancing shoes because you’re about to face the music.”
“Some brother you are.”
“Because you are my brother, I’ll give you the heads-up on the betting pool.”
Ryan drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “What betting pool?”
“Whether you went home with Hailey or Lauren.”
“Hailey? They think I spent the night with Hailey Genest?”
“You have to admit, she’s smokin’ hot and she doesn’t have a kid.”
“She’s got nothing on Lauren.”
“That’s money in my pocket. I knew it was Lauren. So did Liz and Rosie.”
“Rosie bet on who I spent the night with?”
“Hell, Rosie and Aunt Mary have a side bet going.” Josh slapped the side of the car. “We won’t be having Aunt Mary’s lasagna for supper now, by the way. It’ll be Rosie’s shepherd’s pie.”
“I’m not going in there.”
“Chickenshit.”
Worst morning-after ever. Ryan dropped his forehead onto the steering wheel, resisting the urge to do it again and again. All he’d wanted to do was wake up with Lauren in his arms. Maybe take a long, lazy shower together. Have some breakfast. Instead, he got a moody teenager, a pissed ex-husband, a baby brother who thought he was funny and his entire family waiting to watch his walk of shame. Plus, Aunt Mary made a killer lasagna and they wouldn’t be getting any.
Screw it. He couldn’t sit in the car all day. With Josh laughing at him, he walked in through the front door and looked around. Most of the family looked back and it was only a minute before Rose and Aunt Mary popped in from the kitchen.
“I hear we’re having shepherd’s pie for dinner,” he said, and then he walked up the stairs to take a shower, ignoring the outburst of whispers below. At least he knew that while his family would give him crap about this at every possible opportunity, it wouldn’t go any further than that. What happened in the family, stayed in the family. Usually.
Once he was safely behind the locked bathroom door, he turned the shower on as hot as he could stand it and prayed the rest of the family had left enough in the ancient tank to rinse off the soap lather.
Letting the hot water pound his muscles, Ryan leaned his head against the shower wall and closed his eyes. Despite the decidedly shitty morning-after, he wouldn’t change anything about his night with Lauren. It had blown every fantasy he’d ever had right out of the water.
Well, he’d change their first dance because it bugged him he’d let her think he didn’t want her. If he could, he’d go back and dance with her the way he’d wanted to, and screw what anybody else thought.
All he could do now was hope she called him. Not that he wouldn’t reach out if too much time went by, but he really wanted her to call him, because her morning-after had been messier than his and he needed to give her time to straighten it out.
By the time he went back downstairs, the family had gotten over their fascination with his sex life. Either that, or the presence of the kids kept them from butting into his business some more. Whichever it was, at least they were done talking about it for the moment.
“Who’s going to help me get those cars back to where they belong before the game starts?” he asked after he’d downed a couple cups of coffee.
“Everybody seemed to show up while you were in the shower,” Rose told him. “Most folks have two vehicles, so they drove over and picked them up. A few called and they’re going to come by later. I think the only person who doesn’t have a ride over is Hailey Genest, so I told her you’d drop it off in a little bit.”
“I’ll follow you over,” Josh said.
He was still annoyed with his youngest brother, but it made sense. If they got separated, his cousins didn’t know the way to Hailey’s house. Sean might remember, but he was keeping the kids occupied with a thumb-wrestling tournament, so Terry and Lisa wouldn’t thank Ryan for breaking that up.
Rose must have called Hailey when they left, because she was sitting on her porch when he drove into her driveway. She met him halfway while Josh let Ryan’s truck idle at the curb, and he dropped her key into her hand.
“Thanks,” she said. “A little embarrassing to need a ride home.”
“Better than Drew getting called out because you wrapped yourself—and Lauren—around a tree.”
“She got home okay, too?”
“No, I dumped her out on the curb a few miles up the road.”
She laughed. “Dumb question. What I was really asking was what happened after you dropped me off.”
“I brought her home.”
“And then...you went home?”