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Instead, the frustration she’d been struggling with over the past twenty-four hours burst out of her. Her hand flew in the air and, thankfully, she wasn’t sitting and could pace around the small family room. “Could one of you ladies please explain men to me?” she exploded. “I mean, yeah, I’m supposed to be the expert on human behavior, but there are some actions that just don’t make sense!”
“Such as?” Clarissa prompted carefully.
Raven missed the elbow nudge from Clarissa to Mandy or the knowing glances from the other ladies.
“Such as why a man might…do something…and then attribute it to an overindulgence on sugar or carbs! Or maybe why some men think that love,” she turned and glared at each of them in turn, “doesn’t exist!” She threw her arm in the air. “And get this! I didn’t know about this interesting concept, but there are men in the world who think that they only need to be married, or in a committed relationship, while children are growing up! Some men,” she emphasized those two words, “think that the only reason to be married is to produce said children and after the offspring are safely ensconced in college, it’s fine to simply end the relationship and go on his merry way!”
“Is there one man in particular spouting this nonsense?” Mandy prompted.
Raven turned to glare at Bailey. “Did you have any idea, when you hired me to find a spouse for your partner, that he had such ridiculous ideas about relationships?”
Bailey blinked. “Tim doesn’t believe in love?” she asked, obviously startled.
“Nope!” Raven replied, adding another arm toss to emphasize her point. “He thinks that love is a fake emotion. That women pretend to be in love in order to justify their,” she rolled her eyes, “sexual urges!”
The other ladies looked astonished, then in unison, they all burst out laughing. “You’re kidding!” Mandy gasped in between laughs.
“Nope! That’s what he told me. He wants children, and is willing to be married, but good grief, do you know how hard it is to find a woman who is as logical as he is, wants children, but accept a marriage with a time limit?”
The other women stared at Raven for a long moment, shaking their heads at such idiocy.
“He just needs to meet the right woman,” Bailey explained as her laughter slowed, then tilted her head slightly. “What about the current round of candidates you set him up with? Didn’t any of them strike his fancy?”
Raven slumped down on the chair, staring at the delicious foods that her friends had brought. “He said that all of them demonstrated what he didn’t want from a future wife.”
Clarissa lifted her glass. “Well, that’s progress, right?”
Raven grimaced. “I suppose so.”
“Was there any spark from the candidates?” Bailey continued. “Any spark at all? Any kiss at the end of the evening?”
Raven thought about the kiss she and Tim had shared yesterday, and then all of those confusing emotions afterwards. “I didn’t ask about any sort of intimacy,” she replied with as much blandness as she could muster under the circumstances.
Obviously, it wasn’t enough because Bailey’s eyes narrowed suspiciously and Mandy watched carefully as Raven tried to change the subject.
Knowing that more questions would be asked, Raven decided that a change in subject was needed. “I think we should toast to our latest book club meeting. It’s so rare that we can all attend together,” she announced, lifting her glass up high. “To the ‘Naughty Ladies Book Club’! We had another successful reading this month, didn’t we?”
There was a round of cheers, but Raven shifted uncomfortably as Bailey took a long sip of her non-alcoholic sangria, resting her hand on her pregnant belly while still watching Raven curiously.
Thankfully, those cheers brought forth the conversation about the book they’d all read and Raven was finally able to relax. She wasn’t able to fully participate in the conversation, since she was still trying to understand yesterday’s kiss, and the man who had kissed her, but at least there weren’t five sets of intelligent, too-knowing gazes on her.
Tim bent down, narrowed his eyes, and…slammed the red ball into the corner pocket of the pool table. Moving to the other side, he considered the angles of the pool balls littered across the green felt, then bent over and did the same to the blue ball. Over and over, he was unrelenting as he and the pool stick became one, shooting each of the balls into the pockets. When all of the solid balls were put away, he started on the striped, needing the distraction to keep himself from thinking about that kiss.
“Care to play a game?” someone asked.
Tim looked up and watched Levi and Zahir walk into the room. “Don’t you have anyone else to harass?” he growled, then bent over and slammed another ball into a pocket.
“Club business is all caught up,” Levi replied, then took a long sip of his beer. “What’s run up your ass and wiggled?”
Tim had just taken aim, but at the ludicrous question, his pool tip skimmed over the white ball, and he completely missed his shot. The white ball moved two inches to the left, mocking him.
Tim stood up and glared at his friend, then looked around. It wasn’t just Levi and Zahir now standing around the pool table. Sean, Matteo, and Antonio were leaning against the wood paneled walls of the pool room, all with interested gazes and a beer or a glass of something stronger in their hands.
“What’s going on?” he demanded, leaning against the pool stick.
Matteo stepped over to the wall that held the pool sticks and selected one. “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” he replied, examining one of the sticks and finding it adequate. “Why are you so agitated?”
Tim glared at his long-time friend. “Nothing.” He grumbled for a moment, starting to gather all the pool balls so he could rack them up for a game. But after picking up two balls, he stood up, abandoning his purpose as he demanded, “What the hell is with women?”
