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All five men stopped and stared at him, equally confused.
“Could you be more specific?” Levi asked.
Sean chuckled. “Matteo and Bailey hired Raven to find a spouse for our good friend.”
Levi and Zahir shook their heads with sympathy while Antonio looked on with intense confusion. “Why is this such a hardship?” Antonio asked. “I would think that accepting help from someone to find a spouse is a good thing.” He turned back to Tim. “What’s the issue?”
“Women!” he snarled and grabbed more of the balls, loading them into the triangle. “They don’t make sense! They aren’t logical. They all want that stupid ‘love’ thing to make them happy. They want to fall in love and be in love in order to justify…whatever it is that they need to justify.”
“Ye don’t believe in love?” Sean demanded, his Irish accent coming out with his confusion.
“It’s illogical to believe in an emotion that has no basis in reality,” Tim snapped. “Why does anyone need to believe in love in order to justify sex?”
The others stopped and stared, then burst out laughing.
Levi came over and slapped Tim’s shoulder. “What happened, my friend?” he asked.
Tim huffed a bit, then resumed sorting the pool balls. “Nothing happened. I just… I don’t understand why love has to be involved. Why not just decide on a person that you want to have children with and eliminate all of the rest of the messy stuff?”
“Who are you falling in love with?” Matteo prompted.
Tim’s head swiveled towards his business partner and best friend. “I’m not falling in love,” he snapped. “Isn’t that what we’re discussing? I don’t believe in love and I won’t become one of those pathetic men who feigns an emotion that doesn’t exist.”
“For a man who doesn’t believe in love,” Antonio commented, stealing Tim’s pool stick and moving to the other end of the pool table, “you seem almost terrified that it’s happening to you.”
Tim shook his head and walked over to where he’d left his beer. He took a long swallow, only to discover that it was warm. With a grimace, he waved to one of the wait staff. Margaret immediately nodded and left to get him a cold brew.
Tim moved off to lean against the wall, glaring at the pool table. Antonio took the first shot, breaking up the balls. Everyone paused as they watched the balls scatter across the table. Finally, a red ball fell into the upper right corner pocket.
While Levi and Antonio played the game, the other men offered advice on Tim’s issue.
“What makes you disbelieve in love?” Matteo asked.
“As I said, it’s not logical.”
“And yet, I love Bailey with everything inside of me.”
“And I love Declan,” Sean called out. “My feelings for Kennedi are an intense, burning love, but it’s a different kind of feeling than what I feel for my son.”
Tim didn’t respond. Love wasn’t the real issue anyway. It was that kiss. No, it wasn’t the kiss. It was the fact that he wanted to kiss Raven again. But she was completely wrong for him. He wanted something different than what that vixen could offer him. Besides, she was his complete opposite! In every way, they were opposites! There could be no rational future between them.
That thought caught him off-guard. When had he ever considered a future with Raven?
“What’s really going on?” Matteo asked, bending low to take his shot.
Tim considered that question. Then understood. “A marriage, one in which children are created and raised, should be with two people who respect and understand each other.” Okay, maybe he was getting to the crux of the issue. He didn’t understand Raven.
Tim thrived on understanding the world, making the world better and safer, less toxic. Raven…she was a mystery that he couldn’t figure out. She kept confusing him. She was wrong for him in every way that was logical, and yet, he hadn’t given a damn about logic when she’d been in his arms yesterday. In fact, everything about those moments had been completely illogical!
And that bothered him. He wanted, needed, his life to make sense. Everything about his world made sense. And if it didn’t make sense, he would research the problem until he could make sense of the problem. Then it wasn’t a problem any longer.
Raven didn’t fit the boundaries of logic. There wasn’t any way to research her reactions. And yet, he couldn’t seem to dismiss her from his mind!
“You need to talk to her,” Levi advised. “Just tell her what’s on your mind and talk things out. That’s what Clarissa and I do.” He thanked Margaret for the cold beer, then brought it over to Tim. “At first, I didn’t want to have anything to do with her. She was too soft and vulnerable. I grew up with those feelings and didn’t want to deal with them again. But…,” Levi shook his head, laughing at some memory. “Clarissa snuck under my skin. And when she was about to be abused by some unsavory people, I didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t going to let her get hurt.”
“What did you do?” Tim asked, but the merry look in Levi’s eyes warned him that he wasn’t going to like the answer.
“I married her.” He grinned. “And we’ve been taking care of each other ever since.”
