Radio Static: An MM Romantic Mystery by Nicky James

Author:Nicky James [James, Nicky]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-05-31T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

Cooper was out cold, lying across the couch when we went back inside. Raelynn was curled up on her sleeping bag watching a movie alone. She glanced up when we entered and grinned that knowing smile she had. The evidence of our waterside make-out session was no doubt written all over my face—in beard burn and swollen lips—and I hated that my teenage daughter was privy to that sight.

“Coop didn’t last?” Nova asked, brushing his hand along the small of my back as he passed me and went to the kitchen to put our empty beer bottles in the recycling.

“Nope. He didn’t like the movie I picked. He said it was boring.”

“What did you make him watch?” I asked, knowing Raelynn’s penchant for rom-coms and musicals.

“Love, Simon. He got bored in five seconds and said he was going to bed.” Raelynn shrugged and resumed watching her movie.

Cooper’s soft snores filled the cabin. He’d passed out on his stomach. His hat was on the floor, his shirt was askew and riding up his body with the twisted way he lay on the couch, and his hair was a mess and covered the side of his face.

“Maybe next time, let Cooper have a say too.”

Raelynn shrugged but didn’t look up from her tablet.

I let Nova use the bathroom first as I found something to sleep in. The minute he was out of sight, Raelynn pounced, the movie all but forgotten.

She surreptitiously stroked her chin. “So, do we have to talk about the birds and the bees, Dad?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I busied myself fixing my sleeping bag.

“Whatever. I saw you on the dock.”

My head snapped up. “Were you spying?”

“A little. Well, until it got gross and I worried about my poor virgin eyes seeing things I didn’t want to see.” Her face pinched in a look of disgust.

“Good lord.” I washed a hand over my face, heat climbing my neck. “It’s none of your business. Nova is…” I wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence and floundered.

“Uh-huh. Yeah. Nova is…?”

“Watch your movie. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

She giggled, and it sounded the same as when she was a little girl. It sounded far too much like Tammy. “I think it’s a good thing. You never date anyone. You’re always so alone. So lonely.”

“Alone and lonely are not synonyms. I have not been lonely.”

“A little lonely.”

I didn’t respond to that. It was truer than I wanted to admit to my fourteen-year-old daughter. She didn’t have to know how I lay in bed some nights, wondering what it might be like to have someone to share my life with. Someone I could talk to about my busy day at work. Someone who would tell me about theirs. There were nights I longed for someone to wrap their arms around me and hold me while I slept. I imagined waking in the wee hours of the night and making love to that person.

But I’d made my choice, and those ideas were nothing more than dreams.

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