Kissing Her Crazy(11)

Since the sugar rush that had apparently hijacked the little boy’s system was 100 percent his fault, Elliot tried to assuage his guilt by helping to distract him. But his efforts only succeeded in Tyler climbing all over him until Oz finally got up, plucked Tyler from Elliot’s shoulders where he’d lodged himself, and plunked him into his seat. A stern warning, complete with finger waving and the parental look-of-death, and Tyler settled into his seat to pout. Wow. Impressive.

Tyler perked up once the food came. A boy after his own heart. While the kid was busy stuffing his face with pulled pork, Elliot tried again to draw Lena into some kind of conversation. But she barely paid attention to him. She fussed with her plate, with Tyler’s plate, and with Tyler himself until the kid finally groaned in exasperation and she let him alone. She did nothing overtly rude or standoffish, but she more than got the point across that she wasn’t interested.

He’d never, in his twenty-six years of life, ever had a woman ignore him so completely. Usually, one glance and she was his. But since flirting, winking, casual, innocent brushes of his body against hers, and all the other tricks in his bag weren’t working, perhaps he should try being direct and asking her out?

He hesitated, a weird sensation in the pit of his stomach. It took him a moment, but he finally realized he was nervous. That realization surprised him enough that he sat there for a second, unsure of how to proceed. The thought that she might actually turn him down was so foreign he didn’t know what to do. Maybe it would be better to ask her in private. If she was going to shoot him down, he didn’t want her doing it in front of their family.

“Hey, Len,” Oz said, raising a glass that vaguely resembled multicolored cracked safety glass. “This reminds me of those mugs you tried to sell once.”

Lena rolled her eyes at him, and her brother laughed.

“What’s he talking about?” Elliot asked her.

Her cheeks blushed a gorgeous pink, and she shook her head. “Oh, nothing. Just one of my ideas that crashed and burned.”

“Ideas?”

She shrugged. “Until Tyler started school, I stayed home with him, but I still wanted to help bring in some money, so Oz didn’t have to work so hard.”

“Mommy makes really cool stuff!”

Elliot’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah? What kind of stuff?”

“She made me name letters for my room.”

“Name letters?”

“Yeah, I got new ones this year. Soccer balls. I had dinosaurs for a while.”

Elliot looked at Lena, totally lost. She pulled out her phone and scrolled through some pictures before holding it out for him to see. She had taken wood letters that spelled Tyler’s name and painted them to look like soccer balls. She flicked to the next picture, and the name Brianna was decorated in pink and purple with sparkles and jewels and ribbons.

“Those are really cool.”

She shrugged, but her shy smile showed she was pleased. “I have an Etsy store where I sell some crafty-type stuff. I’m always trying to bring in some extra cash. I keep hoping one of them will take off so I can get out of my generous brother’s house,” she said. “No luck so far.”

“And one of the ideas was cracked glasses?” Elliot asked.

“No,” she said with a little laugh. “I used to take this pottery class, and my instructor showed us how to make these really fun mugs. She had several shaped like dragons and trolls, really cool shapes. And I made one that turned out really well. I carved this pretty leaf design into it. It was nice.”

“That sounds like a good idea. People love mugs. They always make great gifts.”

She gave that little self-deprecating laugh again. “Yeah. That’s what I thought. Problem was I had no idea how much all the equipment would cost. Plus, I didn’t have a kiln or anything and firing them in my oven didn’t quite work.”

“Oh, no.” He laughed.

“Yeah. I ended up with fifty cracked mugs that weren’t good for much more than pencil holders. I sold a few at a craft fair…but not nearly enough to actually make a profit. Heck, even if they’d turned out great, I’d have had to make thousands of them to turn a profit. Not something I really had the time or resources to get going.”

Before Elliot could say anything else, Tyler knocked over his water glass.

“Oh, Tyler! Shoot!” Lena jumped up before the water could trail down the table onto her lap.

Elliot slapped his napkin over the puddle and helped her get it mopped up. The waiter came over with more napkins, and in short order they had everything clean and dry. Elliot leaned over to draw her into conversation again, but Cherice got to her first. He thought about catching his sister’s eye to give her the “go away” look, but wasn’t sure that was such a good idea. Lena wasn’t some random chick. She was Oz’s sister, his own sister’s soon to be in-law. He doubted Cherice would approve.