a porn star. He makes a face and turns away, but she can see the dull flush building on the back of his neck. “Cal’s cheekbones are much better. And those shoulders.” She makes an appreciative noise, not unlike the one she’d make if she had cake in front of her right now instead of spinach.
Zac huffs, waves a hand in dismissal. “Stop teasing me. We’re done with that.”
“I know.” She drops the act and gnaws on a lettuce stem. “We’re Serious Grown-Ups.”
“That was your idea,” he reminds her, wiping the baby’s face clean of drool. “I was like, let’s bang more hot people in clubs, marriage doesn’t mean anything has to change, and you were like, I’m going to be a mother.”
“I remember.”
“And I was like, are you going to knit doilies too, you imposter, what have you done with my Anya, you like being filthy too much, and you were like I don’t want my child to ask why his mother’s tits are out in a fan photograph taken in a bar bathroom.”
“I remember,” Anya says sourly.
Zac rolls right over her. “And I was like as long as you’re willing to wear some trashy lingerie now and again, maybe I won’t get tired of married sex—”
“Maybe I’m tired of you, did you think of that?”
He grins, that wide, shit-eating grin that never fails to make her stomach go hot. His laugh is a low rumble, sexy and knowing, and she throws a spinach leaf at him. It doesn’t travel even a foot through the air before it falls to the floor. He keeps grinning at her, the asshole, until she can’t help grinning back.
The silence that follows is easy and she starts thinking about what to make for dinner. Then Zac says quietly, unprompted, “And besides. Even if he was bi and we weren’t being grown-ups and I wasn’t getting everything I need here, he would say no.”
“Would he?” For a moment she’s stuck—she can’t imagine anyone attracted to men not wanting to fuck Zac.
Millions of groupies the world over would roll over at a finger snap, but they don’t count because they only want the great Zacary Trevor, guitarist and singer and charismatic public figure. It’s her Zac that she finds most irresistible, and her Zac is a lanky bastard with a smart mouth, a man of overblown passions, a troublemaker and shit-stirrer since the crib. He’s got some wear and tear now that he’s in his late thirties and a lifetime of partying is starting to catch up, but in the unfair way that time treats men, it’s only made him more attractive.
She doesn’t know how anyone, let alone Cal, who knows him at least as well as she does, could reject this version of Zac—sweet and nurturing with his son, humming as he does laundry, picking out a tune on his acoustic whenever he has five minutes to himself. It’s an alien concept.
But then, Cal is somewhat alien. He’s shifty, even for a musician. She has to think hard about what she knows of Cal, and it’s like pulling scattered ingredients together into a stew—a moment here, an offhand comment there, a long glance to season the pot.
Cal is work, deceptively so for someone with the personality of wet drywall.
Irritated by Cal’s hypothetical rejection of her husband—and by his annoyingly awful existence as a whole—she says, “I suppose if anyone could say no to you, it would be him. Cal Keller.” She huffs a loud breath. “Give me a break.”
“You’re so hard on him.”
“I don’t mean to be. I can’t help it. He’s just so boring.”
Zac laughs, high and surprised. It takes her a moment to realize that he’s not amused by something she’s said. He’s laughing at her. As if she’s missed something obvious.
“What did I say?” she asks, a little offended.
“Cal is not boring.” Zac shakes his head, still laughing, something fond in his voice. Fondness for Cal. If she’s honest, moments like this might be the real root of her mild dislike of Cal—when it’s clear that Zac is thinking about something she doesn’t have access to, these infuriating reminders that Cal was a part of Zac’s life long before she came along. That Cal had Zac first.
“He is. He never says anything interesting or important, and he has no opinions about anything. He never relaxes when we have him over for dinner because of that stick up his ass, and he pretended to like that stroganoff even though I know he