Nathan shrugged. “Your job is mostly boring.”
“Evidently not,” Mick said, “or you wouldn’t have missed the part about her catering an event for my team. She might have even finagled you an invitation if you’d been paying attention.” Mick elbowed Nathan. Nathan had the decency to bow his head and blush.
Nice move, Mick.
“Yeah, okay, so maybe I should have been listening. Anything else good coming up, Mom?”
“Sadly, no. Unless you want to accompany me to a luncheon for the city council. Or maybe a garden party for the Daughters of the American Revolution?”
Nathan shook his head. “No, thanks. I’d rather have my legs waxed.”
Mick laughed. “Can’t say as I blame you, buddy.”
Tara ordered pizza, and Nathan somehow managed to finagle invitations for a “couple” of his best friends to come over. Tara balked at that, but Mick said he didn’t mind. Before she knew it, five teenagers were hanging on Mick’s every word and devouring the ten pizzas she’d ordered, which Mick had insisted on paying for. Once the ravenous horde of teens and one very hungry adult male had been satiated, Mick sat in the living room with Nathan and his friends crowded around him, and they talked nonstop football.
Tara leaned against the wall and listened. Mick seemed so at ease with the kids, didn’t mind answering the barrage of questions, and she hadn’t heard her son talk this much since he was six years old. Of course, it wasn’t like she routinely talked football with him, either. After all, she was his mother. And a girl. So many points against her, whereas Mick was made of hero. He was a football star, and he never had to do the dirty work like tell her son to do his homework or ground him for not making his curfew.
So unfair.
“And what about Gavin? Is he as awesome as he seems?” Nathan asked.
Tara mentally ran through the list of all of San Francisco’s players and came up blank. She thought she knew them all. “Who’s Gavin?”
Nathan shot her a look that said she was a complete idiot. “Gavin Riley, Mom.”
“Uhhhh ...”
Tara shifted her gaze from Mick, who looked amused, to Nathan, who looked appalled.
“Mom, Gavin Riley is not only Mick’s younger brother, he’s also a professional baseball player. First base? Plays for Saint Louis, which, by the way, is also Mick and Gavin’s hometown? What planet are you living on, anyway?”
“Mars, apparently,” Tara said, shooting a helpless look to Mick, who laughed.
“I don’t think she’s required to know every player in every sport, Nathan. And your mom and I just recently started going out, so she doesn’t know my bio as well as you do.”
“Yeah, but if she’s going out with you, she sure as hell should know who your brother is.”
“Language, Nathan,” Tara shot back.
Nathan just shrugged.
“We’ve mainly been just talking about each other, not getting into family history, Nate,” Mick said with a smile that was directed at Tara.
The guys ooohed and ahhed in a very adult way. Nathan cast a curious look at Tara that made her want to slink out of the room.
“That is gross. So anyway, about that game with Green Bay ...”
Saved by football. Tara slipped out of the room before any other embarrassing topics about her and Mick came up. Tara let Mick enjoy the adoration of teen boys for a while longer, until he found her in the kitchen doing dishes. At least she hoped the guy sliding his arms around her was Mick. She turned around when he kissed her neck.
“You don’t have to hide in here,” he said.
She dried her hands on the kitchen towel and backed away. “I didn’t want to get in the middle of such hero worship.”
“Good kids. But like all boys, they tend to want to be the center of attention. I’m dating you, not them. And you have a right to assert yourself.”
“I didn’t mind. Where are they now?”
“I sent the fan club home. Nathan is upstairs working out some plays for tomorrow’s practice with his buddy, then they’re taking off. He said he has practice tomorrow, so I told him he should be asleep by eleven.”
Tara heard the heavy stomping of feet down the stairs. Nathan and Devon appeared in the kitchen.
Her son was smiling. Grinning, even.
“We’re outta here. Bye, Mom. See ya, Mick.”
“See ya, Nathan,” Mick said. “Don’t forget to get some sleep.”
Nathan saluted. “You got it.”
After he left, Tara snorted. “Lights out at eleven? Yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen.”
“It will. He promised me.”
She arched a brow. “You’re serious. He’s actually going to sleep at eleven.”
Mick shrugged. “I gave my speech about growing boys and athletes needing sleep and how much football practice takes out of a body every day, especially in the summer. I can guarantee at eleven p.m., he and his friend will go to sleep.”
Tara leaned back. “I’m ... stunned. I can’t tell you how often I fight with him about going to bed at a decent hour.”
“I was a teenage boy once. I know how hideous we are and I apologize for my gender.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Apology accepted.”
“Good. Now come sit down with me and relax.”
He dragged her into the living room, turned on the television, and flopped down on the couch, then expected her to snuggle up with him.
She hesitated.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t bring guys over here.”
He propped his feet up. “Why not?”
She sat on the chair instead of the couch with him. “I don’t know. I just ... don’t.”
“So you think it’s wrong for your son to know you have a guy over watching television with you?”
She stared at him. “Mick. I don’t know. I don’t ... date.”
“He’s fourteen, Tara.”
She chewed her bottom lip. “His birthday is next month.”
“So you’re telling me that he’ll be fifteen next month, and you’ve never brought a guy over? In how long?”
“What do you mean?”
“What about his dad?”
She hesitated. “He’s not part of Nathan’s life now.”