ideally it should be good sex.”
“That’s what you think a guy is looking for most in a relationship?” Mary Frances Parker looked with barely concealed horror at her brother’s best friend. Clearly, Drew Wiseman was not the man she should be going to for tips on what a man looks for in a woman. “Sex? That’s it?”
“Like I said, good sex, not just any sex,” Drew continued, oblivious to her discomfort. “I mean, quantity counts and everything but quality should play a definite role here.”
“That is so totally ridiculous. I wish you could hear yourself.”
“Hey, you’re the one who came ringing my doorbell wanting to know the guy’s perspective without so much as a hello first. I’m just being honest.”
Frannie thought of her brother, due to be married in a month’s time. “So what you’re basically saying here is that Rick was ruled by nothing but hormones when he proposed to Evie? My friend Betsy’s mind and personality had nothing to do with Tom’s proposal? Sheesh. Men are so pathetic. I’m starting to wonder why I want to find one to marry in the first place.”
Her words threw Drew for a loop. Married? Frannie? Why, she was just a kid. Had he known she was in the market he’d have tailored his advice. After all, the idea of Frannie providing what every man looked for in a relationship disturbed him for reasons he didn’t want to explore. “So if we’re so pathetic and all, why aren’t you busy thinking up ways to avoid us? I mean, why would you want to bind yourself to one of us for the rest of your life anyway?”
“God only knows.” Using the tip of her index finger Frannie glumly picked up cookie crumbs from the kitchen table where she’d made herself at home. “I keep thinking they can’t possibly all be as shallow as they appear, and I do want to have a family and children.” She shrugged. “Lord knows, with my brothers, I’ve picked up enough boxer shorts dropped within spitting distance of a clothes hamper and fished enough dirty socks out from under beds to last me a lifetime, but the plain truth of the matter is men are a necessity if you want a family and babies,” she pointed out, sounding almost forlorn.
Drew sat back in his chair. Would he ever understand women? “Next you’re going to tell me your biological clock is ticking. Am I right?” He rolled his eyes in anticipation of her answer. Andrew couldn’t understand it. His friends’ biological alarms seemed to be going off in depressingly large numbers lately. Didn’t anybody get that babies were a pain? They upchucked, and they did disgusting things in their pants. They got up in the middle of the night, for God’s sake, the middle of the night.
“Well, it is,” his best friend’s little sister answered defensively.
“So let it tick, Frannie,” Andrew advised. “I mean, come on, it’s not like you’ve got one foot in the grave.” He shrugged. Drew was five years older than Frannie. He certainly didn’t feel an uncontrollable need to nest. “The world is overpopulated anyway. If you need to hear the pitter-patter of little feet all that bad, get a dog. They’ll drool, throw up and piddle on the carpeting same as any baby.”
Frannie glowered. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“So why’d you ask?”
“Because you’re safe.”
No man liked to hear himself described as safe. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Safe? He wasn’t safe. He was lean and mean. Andrew had done time in the military. Why, he could easily produce a dozen or more guys who’d be happy to testify just how mean he could be. Safe. What was that? He never should have let Frannie in the door. The fact she’d shown up with a plate of her homemade cookies should have been an indication she was up to no good. When would he ever learn that there was no such thing as a free meal, or in this case, free cookie?
And look at this. Frannie’d been there all of ten minutes and sure enough, here he was getting all worked up. Frannie could rile him the way nobody else ever had, or in all likelihood, ever could.
Frannie sighed. “Well, it certainly wasn’t meant as an insult. Look, all I meant was that I can’t ask somebody who’s a potential mate, now can I? They’d run the opposite direction if they thought I was actively looking for a spouse. Why are men so paranoid?”
“We’re not paranoid, we’re realistic. Women are out to get us.” Drew waved an arm out in the air. “Look at Rick. And our buddy Phil. Then let’s not forget Nate Bowman.” He threw up the other hand. “There goes Wednesday bowling, Friday night poker and the occasional drive into Chicago to see the White Sox play. They’re all too busy out picking china patterns. Meanwhile, what am I supposed to do for entertainment, hmm? None of these women stop to think about their guys’ guy relationships, do they? What is it with your sex and this commitment thing you’ve all got? Why can’t you ladies be happy without a picket fence around your tidy Cape Cod and your two-point-three precocious children?”
Drew picked up his beer and took a thirsty slug. He wasn’t positive, but he was pretty sure Frannie had just insulted him. He knew he shouldn’t ask, but it just showed how wrong she was and how on the edge he liked to live. “And just why am I safe from your machinations I’d like to know?” Not that he wanted to be the target of all that fire power. Of course he didn’t.
“Well, for one thing I couldn’t possibly live with someone who liked country and western.” Frannie bit back a laugh as Drew gaped at her. Then, restlessly, she drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “Okay, while it’s true I loathe and despise country, there’s a little more to it than just your pitiable taste in music. A woman looks for something different in a husband than a date,” she explained carefully, thinking as she spoke. Teasing Drew was fun, but if she intended to pick his brain, which she did, he deserved to know she’d thought this thing through. It wasn’t just a whim on her part. Besides, there was no harm in letting him know she’d be off the market before too much longer. Frannie scowled. As if he’d care. Why couldn’t he care? Everything would be so much easier.
Right away, Drew knew Frannie was actually serious about this current craziness. Frannie never thought before she spoke. Whatever entered her brain exited her mouth. Oh, man, he was going to have to talk to her brother Rick about this.
“For a mate, she needs somebody steady, reliable. Someone who’ll take out the trash and be able to find the clothes hamper when he undresses at night. Somebody who’ll walk the floors with her when the baby has colic. Someone who actually replaces the toilet paper—on the holder, not just sets it in the near vicinity—when he finishes off a roll.”
By God, he was insulted. He could do all those things. If he wanted. It was hardly his fault his toilet paper holder had come away from the wall a month or so ago and he’d been too busy to fix it, now was it? What else could he do but set the roll on the floor? Anyone could see that.
Drew couldn’t believe he was even having this conversation. Damn it, nobody ignited his fuse the way Frannie did. Didn’t the woman understand that the easiest way to handle colic was to not have the baby in the first place?
“Somebody you don’t mind sharing your genetic code with, you know? Everybody I know is out there sharing their genetic code. I’m telling you, every close friend I have is either married or will be by the end of the summer. You should see Sue Ellen’s little boy. He’s just too cute. I want one of those, Drew, I really do. The thing is, it took Sue Ellen three years to get pregnant, and she got married right out of college. You know, a man starts losing some of his potency once he hits his mid twenties, I figured I ought to get on the stick and find somebody now.”
“I
