Erica rolled her eyes. “Right, Dr. Ryan. You sure stayed in school a really long time for someone who hated it so much.”
“Not quite right, Missus Ryan.” His lips quirked up into a defiant grin. “It wasn’t the schooling I hated so much, but the teachers.”
“Misanthrope.”
“And you love me for it, darlin’.” He made a kissy face and put his glasses back on.
Seth chuckled and speared his remaining bit of sausage with his fork. He loved watching the interplay between those two. Theirs was a relationship of two people who needed a special person to bring out something that made them more human. Until Erica came on the scene, Seth hadn’t thought Curt had a match. Curt had been a chronic womanizer, and rarely dated the same girl twice. He’d found something at fault with all of them. Erica had entered the relationship with a whole heap of baggage, but she gave him everything he needed: a person he could call his home.
“Seth, where’d you disappear to last night? Thought you were going to meet us after my nap.” Stephen stretched his arms over his head, yawning as if were mentally reliving the rambunctious evening right there in his breakfast chair.
“Uh…” Seth cut his gaze toward Toby, who was paying them no mind. He’d somehow gotten his hands on Erica’s phone and played some video game featuring little bouncing candy pieces. “Was in the cabana for a while, you know, relaxing. Then I…”
What was he supposed to say? My wife asked me to screw her, and I said yes?
“I turned in early.”
Stephen quirked one dark red eyebrow up. He got it. They were sharing a room, and unless Seth was sleeping out in that cabana, there weren’t many other places he could be, especially considering it was Seth who’d gotten Toby dressed that morning. Meg had been dead to the world, facedown in the bed and looking like one tired mess of an angel. He hadn’t wanted to disturb her when Carla delivered Toby to the bungalow early. All she’d said when noticing his rumpled hair and his hastily donned attire was, “Be careful, Red,” before hurrying away to catch her flight.
It took the implication a bit longer too settle in with Curt. He made an O shape with his mouth and leaned back in his seat. He’d thought this farce was a miserable idea from the get-go, but had conceded it was Seth’s life to ruin as he saw fit.
Erica didn’t seem to care one way or the other about the discussion. She leaned toward Toby and clucked her tongue. “No, no, no. You have to make the little pink lizard lick the candy, or it won’t stick,” she said.
Toby responded with an, “Oh!”
“Tobias Scott Coffman, have you been on the beach already this morning?” asked Meg in a somewhat high, though well-modulated, voice originating a few feet from Seth’s back.
Toby’s eyes widened. He set down the phone, and his shoulders slumped. “Yes, ma’am,” he said in a nearly inaudible volume.
Meg’s scent reached Seth’s nose long before she was at his side, at the corner between his chair and Toby’s. She stood with her back to him, hands on hips, and said nothing for a moment.
Seth leaned forward to see Toby hesitantly casting his gaze up to his mother’s face.
Meg’s shoulders relaxed, and her weight shifted so her left hip jutted out.
It wasn’t Toby’s fault. It’d been early and the morning was cool, so Seth had taken him down to the beach before breakfast. He’d been careful, but there was no way Meg would have known that.
He rested his palm on the small of her back and she jumped, and turned, lips tight and eyes narrowed.
Shit.
“Megan, I took him. It’s not his fault. You were asleep, and he had some energy to burn off.”
That was an understatement.
“He was never more than five feet from me.”
The hard set of her jaw relaxed somewhat. “You should have woken me.”
“Why?” Stephen asked. He leaned back for the waitress who’d arrived and let her top off his coffee.
“Megan, would you like some coffee?” Seth asked, already clearing Toby’s space at the table for her. Toby used that distraction to hop off the cushioned chair and squeeze himself between Curt and Erica.
Erica sighed and handed him the phone back.
Meg took Toby’s seat and nodded at the waitress. “To answer your question, Stephen, it’s because that’s what parenting is about. You don’t pawn your kids off on other people and expect them to watch them all day while you sleep off the previous day’s mistakes.”
Seth’s gut roiled.
Mistakes?
“Get a grip, sis. There are four other adults remaining here besides yourself. Yesterday, there were eight. Never at any time have we felt outnumbered by that guy.” He crooked his thumb toward his nephew, who was now locked in an intense conversation with the waitress about the best strategy for beating his current round of Sticky Candy Safari. “I’m flying back to Massachusetts tomorrow. Let me teach the kid a few bad habits before I go, huh?”