Single (Single Dads Book 1) Read online

  The duck quacked indignantly at something that a duck would find important. Probably the fact that we had nothing to feed it.

  The sound was enough to make Ash jump. Then he smiled at me, looking a hundred kinds of embarrassed.

  Jeez, he had one hell of a sexy smile.

  I couldn’t help it. I leaned forward and brushed a kiss on his lips. He looked startled, and I felt smug and happy.

  I could kiss that smile each day and enjoy every minute of it.

  Asher

  Ten minutes before we were due to leave to go over to Sean’s house for food, I was completely organized. We were only a few steps from the house next door, but I’d packed for the apocalypse. I had a pacifier, a backup pacifier, and a further pacifier in the changing bag. Not that Mia even seemed to like pacifiers much. I had burp cloths, two changes of clothing, a changing mat, diapers, wipes, formula, a hat for shade, one for warmth, blankets… you name it, and I had it, all packed up on the stroller, which nearly toppled over. My thinking was that Mia could sleep in the stroller when she was tired. I’d reached the front door before I realized I was missing the most important thing.

  Mia.

  I stood for a moment in my hallway, with my eyes closed. What kind of dad packs all the peripherals and forgets the baby asleep in her crib? My chest tightened, and I breathed my way down from twenty, just as Sean had shown me when he’d gotten so damn close I could smell the citrus of his shower gel. Or shampoo. Or whatever.

  All I knew was that he’d smelled good, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, I’d been hard. I could have swayed even closer, mesmerized by the clear blue of his eyes. I had a serious thing for men who exuded the kind of confidence that Sean projected. The way he’d held Mia, the way he walked and talked, his sense of humor, his close friendship with his two housemates, all came together in one appealing sexy package.

  Don’t think about the word package.

  Would he kiss me again? Deeper, harder? I was hoping so while at the same time wondering what the hell I was doing even thinking about it.

  I ran up the stairs, slowing as I entered my bedroom and the scent of Mia hit me hard. Only this wasn’t talc and love. This was a diaper filled with contents from hell itself. I couldn’t help it. I gagged and reached for one of the clean sleepers to put across my nose so I could get closer.

  “You need to deal with this first,” I said out loud.

  It was everywhere, her back, her legs, soaking through her sleeper, and there was nothing for it. I took off the clean T-shirt, my best one, and my jeans, and then, in my underwear, I lifted her from her crib where she lay eyes screwed up, a wail moments away. Then the two of us went into the bathroom, and to the changing table I’d pushed into one corner. I stripped her and made a quick decision that the sleepers was going into the garbage with the diaper and almost the entire pack of wipes. At least she didn’t begin to cry, and by the end of it, she was staring up at me with her beautiful wide eyes, like I hung the moon and stars.

  Still in my underwear, I got into the shower with her in my arms, and we showered together until we both smelled of baby shampoo and sweetness.

  “How can one tiny person make so much mess?” I sang to her as I dried her off and left the bedroom window open to get rid of the lingering smell before bundling up the bedding and throwing it into the wash. Dressed and ready to go again, we were now forty minutes late, but at least she was clean.

  I couldn’t see Sean when I arrived, but that didn’t mean anything. Because their house was on the corner edge of our road, their garden was three times the size of mine and full of bushes and plants. All I could see was the sparkling water in their pool and the barbecue manned by the guy who had vomited into my bush, and the cop from the other night.

  “Hey!” the cop called.

  I sauntered over, giving myself enough time to remember his name. I remembered I had a way to recall his name, and that it had been something very clever, but I’d forgotten the reminder thing, and nothing was coming to me.

  “Leo,” he introduced himself and held out a hand. “And you met Eric, right?”

  Eric shot me a grin, then concentrated back on the burgers he was flipping. The scent of them was awesome, and the idea of a bun filled with burger and onions and ketchup had my stomach rumbling in anticipation. I had managed breakfast today, but other than that, it was only coffee holding me together.

  “Ash,” I replied, then shook his hand and Eric’s.

  “And this must be little Mia?” Leo asked and held out his hands in that age-old demand to hold the baby.

  “Yeah,” I said and tried to ignore the unspoken request.

  “Can I hold her? I love babies.”

  After a moment’s consideration, I passed her to him, my hands not leaving her until he had her secure in his hold.

  “Mind her—”

  “Head, yeah, I’m used to this. I have six nieces and nephews, and I’m godfather to five of them.”

  “Six?” I couldn’t get my head wrapped around any of that; Leo must’ve been the same age as me, and his siblings had managed to produce six kids?

  “I’m the youngest of four.” He rocked Mia and murmured soft words to her, and after a while, I tried to let myself relax.

  “Beer?” Eric asked and held one out to me.

  “No, thank you. If I drink, I’ll fall asleep.” I laughed at my own joke, anything to deflect the fact that I didn’t want to drink until Mia was eighteen, or maybe thirty. I wanted to be there for her whatever she needed, and I’d grown up in a house overshadowed by a father whose downtime had been as an unconscious and unwieldy weight in an easy chair. I won’t be that dad.

  Eric nodded, and it was obvious that he approved, and I had no idea why, but that reaction mattered to me.

  “You made it.” Sean came to a stop next to me, carrying a covered salad and his own beer, grinning widely.

  “Yeah, sorry I’m late. There was an incident.”

  Sean placed the salad and beer onto the table next to the grill and held out his hands for Mia.

  “She’s all mine,” Leo protested and turned his back on Sean. “You’ve already had your go.” Then he began to murmur to Mia again, “It’s my turn to cuddle you, isn’t it, Princess Mia? You want to stay with the hero cop, not the stinky blood and guts doctor.” He took a seat, well away from the barbecue, and placed her on his knees, tickling her tummy and letting her grip his hand.

  “You’ve lost her now,” Sean said with a sigh. “We all have. Leo’s a baby magnet.”

  “Not to mention the baby-mommas,” Eric pointed out. Then he inclined his head to me, “And baby-daddies.”

  I let out a weak laugh, one that I hoped underscored my current unease that I wasn’t the one holding Mia. Then I tried to pull myself together. This was a trip out, this was socialization and included food that wasn’t cereal, and mostly these were three capable guys who seemed to be genuinely friendly neighbors.

  “How long have you lived in your house?” Eric asked.

  “Three years now. We bought it when we first started looking into surrogacy.” I realized the slip of including Darius in my description and decided to head the questions off at the pass. “To be fair though, my ex didn’t ever live here. He had a place in LA where he spent most of his time.” In hindsight, it was obvious that I had been the nest builder, the one who’d wanted a real home to bring a baby to. I’m not sure Darius ever wanted a home, and that was on me for pushing my expectations onto him.

  And for him never telling you what he really wanted.

  Although would I have listened, even if he had said he wanted to stop or told me he didn’t want to start a family in a three-bedroom house in the ’burbs? I always thought I would have, but I’d become so fixated on what I wanted I’d never even known he’d been sleeping with other guys or that he’d been searching for work overseas. I mean, how far does a man need to run to get away from me? London, England, it seemed, and now, according to his pr
ofile updates on Facebook, he was on vacation in Bali.

  “But it’s just you now, with Mia,” Eric stated this as fact more than a question. I nodded, and he slapped a burger onto a bun and handed it to me. “Well, you have us to help if you need us. I mean, I owe you one for sure. Anyway, onions and relish and the entire contents of our cupboards is there, courtesy of Sean, who does nothing by halves. Don’t give anything to Cap,” he added and pointed at the black lab fast asleep under the table. “He ate an entire bag of buns and is in disgrace.”

  I took the burger to the table he’d pointed at, which was groaning under the weight of about ten different bottles of ketchup and mustards, along with a big bowl of warm cooked onions I decided to ignore for now. My mouth was watering, but I just needed to do one thing.

  “Are you okay with Mia?” I asked Leo, who waved away my question and continued singing his mash-up of Jack and Jill with what sounded like a Justin Bieber song. Whatever he was creating had Mia staring at him, kicking her legs and waving her chubby fists. So I did what every new parent did when they get five minutes peace. I inhaled the burger as if I was never going to see another meal, then sat back in my chair and let out a deep groan of satisfaction. I glanced up to see all three men staring at me. Eric was smirking, Leo smiling, and Sean? Well, Sean seemed weird, his face scrunched up, his eyes narrowed, and he wasn’t moving at all.

  Eric cleared his throat. “Sean, are you sure I can’t ask Ash out for a—?”

  “No,” Sean snapped. Then he gestured to the pool. “Come with me, Ash, and I’ll show you the pool.”

  Should I tell him that I can see the pool from my house? Or that when the house had been vacant, I’d volunteered to take care of said pool and had used it on more than one occasion? He looked so intense that I said nothing and instead padded after him, stopping when I could see the pool but could also glance back at Mia on Leo’s lap.

  “Anytime you want to use it, feel free,” Sean said and waved at the clear water. It wasn’t hot today, not San Diego summer hot, but it was warm enough that I’d have loved to have been diving in. “Eric teaches swimming sometimes, so when Mia is big enough, you could ask him to teach her. I know he’d do it. Not only that, but obviously he’s trained in first aid if anything happened… shit… I didn’t mean to say that. What I meant was—”

  “It’s okay. I know what you mean. You’re reassuring me. People do that a lot. Only they bring up all kinds of new worries.” I was teasing, but Sean seemed concerned, so I punched him in the arm because hey, that seemed like a good idea at the time. “Joke,” I added and wished I wasn’t so lame.

  He examined me as if he was studying me under the microscope and took a step closer to me.

  “Eric likes you. He told me that if I didn’t do something, then he wants to ask you out.”

  “What? He does?”

  “So I need to do something.”

  He was so close I could see the darker blue around his pupils. “Okay.”

  “You can stop me if you don’t want me to kiss you,” he murmured, his voice as soothing as the one Leo was using to talk to Mia.

  “I want you to kiss me,” I said.

  He reached out and cupped my face with one hand. “You have the most beautiful lips,” he growled.

  I was hard. Even with everything that weighed me down, the worry, the diaper thing, my mom, the world, this moment crystalized as a single perfect thing.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, and I sighed with impatience.

  I swear if he doesn’t kiss me now…

  The first press of his lips to mine was chaste, a brush of something so soft I barely felt it, and he pulled back. I lost myself in his sapphire eyes and waited for another one. I didn’t have to wait long as he cradled my face in both hands and tilted my head to kiss me again. This time he didn’t hold back, and I parted my lips, desperate for a taste of him. He licked into my mouth, our tongues tangling, and I rested my hands on his biceps before sliding them down his arms and resting them on his hips. He was just the right height for me. He wasn’t pushy or toppy or waiting for me to call the shots. We were together in this kiss, and I don’t think I’d ever been kissed so thoroughly before. I wanted to touch him, to pull him against me and feel if he was as hard as me, and when we broke for breath and I opened my eyes, I saw lust in his expression, and I dove straight back in.

  I slipped my hands around to his ass, cupped him, tugged him close. I could feel his cock hard and pressing against mine. He groaned, and I was powerful and unstoppable and so damn needy. We moved. I moved, or he did. I don’t know, but the need in me for the touch of a man, this man, was overwhelming. I lost myself in kisses. Nothing mattered, not the sun or the water or the fear over Mia or…

  Mia.

  I eased myself away, and he chased me for the kiss, eyes closed, only opening them when I let go of my hold on his ass.

  He smiled at me and pressed a finger to his lips.

  “Wow,” he murmured.

  “I need to…” I thumbed back at Mia and waited for him to argue about how Leo had her and it was fine and that just like the rest of my life I should pull my head out of my ass and get things into perspective. He didn’t say any of that.

  Because he’s not Darius.

  “Let’s eat some more,” he announced and followed me back to the circle of chairs, rearranging himself in his shorts. I just thanked the heavens that my cutoffs were structured denim and that my loose cotton T-shirt was untucked and long. Cap was up and snuffling around the table holding the relishes and curled up next to me when I sat down.

  I didn’t give him any burger.

  Well, I did, but it was the tiniest bit ever, and no one saw me. Maybe one day I could get a dog, something to make the house seem more like a home. Mia would love that, I was sure of it.

  By the time I’d finished my second burger and fed Mia, I chilled out and listened to Sean, Leo, and Eric teasing each other. They’d clearly known each other a long time, as evidenced by the fact that they’d all lived on the same road as kids.

  “So my mom bought me a medical kit for my birthday,” Eric said. “You know, one of those little ones with the stethoscopes, and I decided, at the age of five, I was going to be a doctor.”

  That would have been fine coming from Sean, but it was Eric, the firefighter, who’d stated that fact.

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  “Sean demanded I swap my kit for his firefighter dress-up clothes, and that was it, my entire life shifted.”

  “Eric cried,” Sean said and saluted Eric with a beer. “I remember he was all ‘waaaaahhh, I want my baby medical kit back.’”

  “I was traumatized,” Eric said and fake scowled at Sean.

  “It shows,” Sean teased.

  Leo cleared his throat. “Then aged seven, I arrived on the scene, with my dress-up cop outfit, and we’d play first responders. It was kind of cool.”

  “Except I was always the victim,” Sean said. “Eric wanted to rescue me from impossible situations, normally up trees, and Leo wanted to pretend arrest me. We never got to play the bits where I used my fake scalpel on them.”

  The banter continued for a while, and I didn’t feel left out. I felt as if they were including me in their little stories about how they all, as seniors in high school, decided what they wanted to do with their lives.

  Eric went straight from school into the fire service, Leo got a criminology degree and then joined the SDPD, and Sean was saddled with huge college debts and had spent most of what he called his youth, studying for exams. They’d stayed friends through all of it, and when it had come time for Sean to look for a residency, he’d come home, shared a shitty apartment with his two friends, and worked his ass off at Soledad Memorial.

  “The house is mostly Eric’s,” Sean explained. “But Leo and I are happy to sponge off him.”

  “Whatever,” Eric gestured and pointed at Sean. “You both invested and own twenty-five percent, and you know it.”

&
nbsp; “Yep, we own a quarter of this bachelor paradise,” Leo added and fist-bumped Sean. They struck me as being as far from typical bachelors as possible. Although I guess there was still time for the wild parties to start, and I held hope that they wouldn’t be the kind of neighbors a person ended up hating.

  When Mia stirred from her dozing, it was six, and Sean had to leave for the hospital, but he walked me out and didn’t stop until we reached my front door. I stepped into the cool interior, and he followed me and shut the door.

  “I just want to kiss you goodbye,” he said and cradled my face again.

  This kiss was awkward as I was still holding Mia, and we were sideways on, but still… this man could kiss. When we parted, he pressed a small touch to Mia’s head, then opened my front door and let himself out. He winked and waved, and then he was gone, and I was all alone in my house. My belly was full, I’d had a good afternoon in the shade, and once Mia was fed, inevitably the two of us would fall asleep in the garden-room.

  Sean was there in my dreams, not in an erotic cock-waving kind of way, but in a gentle lovemaking way, the kind that left me breathless with the kisses. When I opened my eyes and the last of the dream drifted away, I carried Mia up to her crib and lay back on my bed.

  I was like a kid after a first date again.

  And it felt good.

  Ash: My next-door neighbor kissed me.

  Brady:?

  Ash: He’s a doctor, a good guy, and he kissed me.

  Brady: Tell me more.

  So I did.

  Saturday came around all too fast, and with it, the arrival of my sister and her kids.

  “Uncle Ash!” A whirlwind headed straight at me, and even tired, I managed to turn in time to scoop up my niece. Debs was nine, but she wasn’t too aloof to cling to me like a monkey to a tree. I hoped that she never would be.