I was at his side, my neck twisted, my head tipped back to see his neck twisted and his head tipped down.
“You look good,” he muttered.
“Thanks, you do too,” I muttered back and his mouth twitched.
Then he turned his head, I followed suit and I finally took in his kids.
I shouldn’t have been surprised.
I wasn’t about his boy Jonas. Jonas looked a lot like Mike. He wasn’t the spitting image but he had his father’s coloring and his build. In fact, he was only maybe an inch shorter than Mike. And he had a lot of Mike in his face.
I was surprised about his girl Clarisse. She had Mike’s coloring but either she looked like her mother (which would be disappointing since Audrey, in my head, looked like a she-demon with horns, fangs, acid green eyes and matted hair) or she was all Clarisse.
She was out-and-out beautiful. So much so I’d never seen a girl her age that striking.
“Dusty, this is my son, Jonas. He likes to be called No,” Mike started to introduce, I pulled my eyes from the beautiful Clarisse and looked up at No who was offering a hand to me.
I took it, squeezed and smiled up at him. “Hey, No. Cool to meet you.”
“Yeah, you too,” he replied, grinning an easy but lazy grin that I was certain the high school girls all creamed their pants over. Then he let my hand go, looked to his sister and declared, “Told you Dad would nail a hot babe.”
Clarisse’s eyes got big and her face flushed in a way that was so becoming I felt the desire to find a camera immediately and capture it on film. Then daggers formed in her eyes as she glared at her brother. I wasn’t certain what this meant. I was certain the daggers were imaginary because her brother wasn’t felled instantly.
At the same time I heard Rhonda gasp and Kirby and Finley chuckle.
Mike just said in a warning low, “No.”
He was using that word in two ways and No’s playful gaze went unrepentantly to his Dad then to me.
I winked at him.
His easy, lazy grin turned into a bright, easy, lazy smile.
Yeah, the high school girls creamed their pants for this kid. Totally.
“Right, that’s No and this is my daughter, Clarisse,” Mike carried on.
I stopped looking at No and turned my gaze to Clarisse.
“Hey, honey,” I said softly and put my hand out.
She looked at it then at me, took my hand and murmured, “Hey.”
I squeezed her hand and said right out, “I’m into your Dad so you gotta know I want you to like me but I’m not blowing sunshine when I say you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”
Mike’s arm got tight around my waist. Clarisse’s hand spasmed in mine as her cheeks again got pink, her eyes got round and not in a pissed off way and her perfect, full lips parted endearingly.
Finally, she visibly and audibly forced out an, “Uh…thanks.”
“Just saying it like it is,” I told her.
Her chin dipped slightly and she looked at me under her lashes, watchful but bashful and it was then I figured, even at fourteen, nearly fifteen, that girl made the high school boys cream their jeans.
If Clarisse didn’t fly right off the rails and become a goth or get a fake ID and a tramp stamp, Mike was just about to enter approximately five years of his life that would include a world of hurt. And this hurt didn’t mean wondering where he went wrong but lamenting that he went very right including the fact he passed on excellent genes.
I dropped her hand and Mike shifted us.
Then he spoke but not to me or his kids, to Rhonda.
“Brought the kids in so they didn’t have to sit out in the cold while we had a chat. Dusty and I need to talk to you and the boys about something quickly before we go.”
I’d forgotten about this. That was how freaked out I was about meeting Mike’s kids. But when he’d phoned me to tell me where we were going for dinner, he’d also told me when he showed he wanted a minute to talk not only to Rhonda but to Fin and Kirb about Debbie.
Weirdly, I did not think of this as Mike horning in on family business. It could be because he’d been around so long, in our lives, Darrin talking about him, Debbie dating him, him meaning what he meant to me, that he kind of felt like he already was family. It could be that after Fin told me what was going down with my bitchface sister and Rhonda not snapping out of it, for the first time in a long time I felt overwhelmed. And Mike not just taking my back but ready, willing and able to wade in to help me shoulder the burden took some of that weight off me. Better, he wasn’t going to delay and I knew this the instant he slid my phone from my fingers last night when bitchface Debbie had the audacity to call me. And then, he didn’t even know what was going on.
“Can we talk in the living room?” Mike asked and I looked to Rhonda to see she looked confused. I looked to Kirby to see he was looking at his brother. And then I looked to Finley to see, not surprisingly, he had his eyes glued to Clarisse.
That was when I looked to my boots and grinned.