Free The Sweetest Fling (A Stupid Cupid Book) by Amber Scott Page B

a late shift tonight, so Cody gets to sleep over,” Helen answered from the stove in singsong tones.
    Jace didn’t ask about Cody’s mom. Gini, the waitress Davis seduced at Lawrence and Ashley’s wedding ran off more than two years ago, and every time he recalled it his heart ached for the sweet little boy.
    “So?” Tyler said.
    Damn. He’d hoped he’d forgotten his question, even if he hadn’t. Would things be different today if Tyler had made it to lunch yesterday?
    “Jace introduced me to Belinda yesterday,” Helen chimed in, as his dad came over and kissed Jace’s forehead.
    “How’s my boy?” his dad said.
    “Good,” Jace said to his dad. “Bels,” he said to Tyler, loud enough for his mother to hear the correction. Why he still felt the need to was another matter entirely.
    Tyler’s eyebrows rose to appropriately high heights as he nodded and flipped a thumbs-up.
    “And now he’s here to find out what I thought about her.” Helen Fletcher was nothing if not politely direct. “But he should know better. He wants to know what I saw with my own two eyes, that he should already know, and doesn’t really want me pointing out.”
    Jace was hard pressed not to turn and gauge his mom’s expression. What exactly did Helen Fletcher mean by that? Had she recognized the awkward sparks flying between him and Claire?
    Not that he would ask, or ever find out.
    Tyler began serving the moment the food hit the table, but otherwise kept pretty quiet. Jace wondered what their mom had told Tyler, and about whom. Someone had better tell Tyler about seeing Claire. And it wouldn’t be Jace.
    “Eventful day, huh?”
    Shit. Tyler knew. Three little words, and Jace knew that Tyler knew that Claire had been the event of the day. He nodded and filled his plate.
    His belly quaked to a new level of dread. It would all come crashing down if he didn’t handle things just so. Never mind his broken heart resurfacing or the intermittent itch to call Claire, to find her, and demand some answers. Never mind all that. He had a brother he’d almost betrayed to worry about. Plus, a pretty wonderful girlfriend to consider. A girlfriend who had picked up on his attraction to Claire.
    Hard.
    Claire would have to wait.
    Wait? What was he doing even thinking that the only ghost of his dark past would ever be seen or heard from again, let alone available and willing to explain all those unreturned phone calls. To explain the letter. The most gut-wrenching, sweet, sincere, and final love letter imaginable. No, stupid! Not the letter, either.
    A pile of peas sat on his fork, and Cody was looking at him to see if he’d eat them. If he didn’t, Cody would announce it. Then Tyler, or worse, his mother, would suspect he was not here to find out how well his mom had liked Bels.
    He felt terrible for it, but really didn’t care what his mom thought about Bels. And that was a huge change. This was only the third girl his mom had ever met and the other two had not stacked up well. But, that had been fine. Bels was the first who he really wanted his mom to care about.
    Bels was the first woman who had come close to making him feel like Claire did.
    Until one chance meeting unraveled all his neatly tied knots covering up the past, hiding a longing that never went away.
    Jace put the peas in his mouth and grinned at Cody. Yummy. The kid wasn’t buying it. Jace wasn’t much for faking it right now, though. He should be. Missing Claire had become like wearing a watch, but the watch was gone. Jace still felt it there, and checked it for the time.
    Claire. She’d always been there. To compare other women to, to miss, to rage over, to love. After so many years, he’d come to believe he was in love with an idea more than the actual woman. Had decided it was an easy excuse to hold back, to never fully commit to another woman. Jace wasn’t scared that Claire might call up, show up, and beg for him back.
    “Uncle Jathe,” Cody asked. “Do you like