“And this one is an elephant!” She held out a picture to me, and I looked down at the page in front of me; I had to admit, she was pretty damn cute, and the way she was so enthusiastic about showing me her art was making my heart melt just a little.
“It’s really good.” I smiled at her and glanced around to figure out what I was going to do for the next hour; Logan had just said to let her get on with her coloring, but I felt as though it would have been a little weird if I had just sat there and watched her do her own thing. And there was some part of me that wanted to make sure that Logan saw that he could trust me; that I was worth asking for help like this.
I spotted a cupboard in the small kitchen that was half-open, and inside I could see tea, coffee, and hot chocolate powder.
“Hey, you know what always helps me sleep?” I asked.
She perked up and grinned. “What?”
“A milky hot chocolate,” I replied, and she bounced up to her feet and scurried through to the kitchen.
“Can I help you make one?” she asked keenly, and I couldn’t help chuckling. She was so damn sweet. Maybe it was just really little kids I had a problem with because she was just like a little grown-up. Except that I couldn’t tell her the truth, that I usually had a few glasses of wine on those nights when I knew I was going to be struggling to get to sleep.
I made both of us a hot chocolate, with her helping me find everything I needed, and we sat at the dinner table sipping on the steaming sweet drinks. She kicked her legs back and forth happily, and I realized I was going to have to make conversation with her. I had been the one to pull her away from her coloring, now I had to be the one to make sure that it had been worth it.
“So, Erin,” I asked, trailing my finger around my drink and sucking off the spot of foam that got on to my fingertip. “What else do you like to do? Besides drawing?”
“Uh,” she blinked at me for a couple of seconds as though I had put her on the spot, but then she seemed to gather herself and nod with certainty. “I like to read,” she replied as though it was the most important thing in the world. I remembered, all at once, all that reading I had done when I was her age—these days, I was lucky if I managed to get to the end of a full article without clicking away. But I used to be a voracious reader, going through whole series like they were chapters over the course of single weekends. I didn’t have a whole lot of friends, but none of that mattered when I had my nose deep in a book.
“Oh? Who do you like to read?” I asked her. And just like that, she was chattering away about the authors she liked, her favorite books, what she wanted to read next. We even chatted a little about the books that I read when I was growing up that she had picked up as well, the classics that never got old. I finished my drink, and she finished hers, though I noticed that she was going really slowly, as though she didn’t want to finish the conversation. Hey, maybe I wasn’t as bad at this as I thought.
Eventually, I noticed her eyes drooping, and I got to my feet and pointed to the bathroom. “You go brush your teeth,” I told her. “And I’ll wash up here.”
“Will you read me a bedtime story?” she asked hopefully, and I paused for a moment—I hadn’t even thought about that.
“Uh, sure,” I replied at last. “You go get ready for bed, alright? And I’ll pick us something to read.”
I finished cleaning up and then headed to her bedroom to pick out a book to read from; I chose one with short stories, to make sure that if I somehow fucked this up, at least the ordeal wouldn’t last for too long.
She appeared in the door a moment later, dressed in a pair of pink pajamas with a kitten wearing a crown on the front; I grinned when I saw what she was wearing.
“They’re very cool,” I remarked. “I wish I had a pair like them.”
She was about to climb into bed when I held my finger up and pointed to her mouth. “Let me see those choppers,” I told her, and she opened her mouth and beamed widely.
“Gleaming,” I agreed after I pretended to inspect them for a moment. She bounced into bed, and it seemed like she was so full of energy that I would never get her to close her eyes. I perched on the edge of the bed, in that tiny little girl’s room, and I read her a story. The short story idea seemed to go out the window at once, as I found myself enjoying reading to her, seeing the way her face lit up when I got to certain points or when I snuck in the odd funny voice to keep things lively. But then I noticed she was struggling to keep her eyes open just to be able to hear me continue to read, and I finished up the story I was on and pulled the covers up over her.
“You should get some sleep now,” I told her.
“Goodnight, Nina,” she yawned, and before I could reply her head had hit the pillow, and she was out for the count. I chuckled, carefully put the book away and switched the light off before making my way back to the living room. Okay, that hadn’t been so bad at all. I couldn’t imagine doing it for much longer, but I had survived an hour or two. Even if I felt as though I could have just gone to bed myself now.
The landline rang, and without thinking I picked it up, forgetting that I wasn’t in my own place. Well, I could just take a message for him or—
“Hey, it’s me,” Ant yawned down the line. Well, that made things easier.
“Hey, Ant!” I replied.
“Wait, what—” she stopped herself, caught her breath, and then tried again. “Are you in Logan’s apartment?”
“Sure am,” I replied. “I’m looking after Erin. Or I was, she just went to bed.”
“He was calling me all evening to try and get me to come and take care of her,” Ant remarked, still sounding a little shocked. “I thought he must have found someone else by now …”
“He just came downstairs and asked me to watch her for a little while,” I shrugged. “We … uh, we bumped into each other in the halls a couple of times, so he knew who I was.”
“That’s crazy,” Ant murmured. “He doesn’t trust anyone with Erin. You must have made a really good impression on him.”
“Are you telling me that I don’t immediately come across as the kind of woman you’d want to leave your children with?” I shot back, playing at being wounded by her implication.
She laughed. “Hey, you can’t blame me,” she protested. “You’re the one who’s always telling me how much you hate being around kids. Are you starting up a babysitting business on the side now?”
“Oh, hell, no.” I shook my head. “I just did this as a favor. You know, good neighbors and all that.”
“Right.” She sounded a little suspicious, but she let it go.
I wondered if she had caught on to the fact that it was hardly the halls Logan and I kept on ending up in together, but I breezed on by in the hopes that she wouldn’t focus too intently on what I had told her already.
“She was really good tonight,” I remarked, and I could hear the smile in Ant’s voice as she replied.
“Yeah, she’s a total little star,” she agreed. “She’s so cute. And she’s so easy to take care of. Logan’s an amazing dad, he makes sure she respects the people taking care of her.”
“She was a little angel,” I replied. “She showed me some of her pictures, she told me about her books, and then she asked me to read her a bedtime story and then she just passed out. It was really cute.”
“Do I sense a hint of a change of heart around you, Miss Nina?” she teased. “Come on, you can tell me.”
“No, it’s not like that.” I shook my head. “I still couldn’t imagine doing this all the time. I mean, it’s fine for a couple of hours, but that’s it. I’m certainly not usurping your aunt position.”
“Good,” she shot back playfully. “But still, Logan must like you if he’s letting you take care of her; he doesn’t let anyone near her normally …”
“Or maybe he just knows I’m a friend of yours and trusts your judgment,” I pointed out. “I wouldn’t read too much into it, Ant, really.”
“That’s exactly what someone
who was trying to steal my spot would say,” she replied, yawning again. “Jesus, I’m tired. I’m glad I didn’t have to come over there in the end. I think I’d have been good for nothing anyway.”
“What were you up to tonight?” I leaned back in the seat I had taken at the dining table and stretched my arms above my head. I still had a while till Logan came home, so I might as well catch up with my best friend.
“Oh, nothing much,” she replied coyly, and I instantly leaned in.
“Come on, tell me!” I ordered her. “Was it a guy?”
“Maybe,” she replied, and just like that we were caught up in a conversation about a guy she’d been hooking up with recently and exactly what she thought the relationship meant to the two of them; I was happy to lose myself in the chat, in something other than the strange feelings that were running through my head being in this apartment all by myself.
“Anyway, I should get going,” she told me after a long run of analysis and conversation. “I’ll see you later in the week, though, huh?”
“Sounds good,” I agreed. “Keep me up to date with your man, okay?”
“He’s not my man yet,” she reminded me.
“But he will be soon, if you want him,” I replied, and she chuckled down the line.
I felt a wave of relief; for now, at least, I’d managed to deflect any doubts she might have had about Logan and I and the nature of our relationship. I just had to make sure I kept her in the dark, and that nothing like what happened that night last week happened again.
“I’ll catch you later. Good luck with the rest of the night with Erin,” she replied, and we said our goodbyes and hung up, leaving me all alone once more in that apartment and considering what we had spoken about.
Right at the start of the conversation, she mentioned that Logan didn’t trust just anyone with his daughter. And I believed that; it was clear from just being in this place and seeing all the stuff she had here that he was a doting father, and there was no way that wouldn’t extend to protecting her from the people he was unsure of too. So why was he all right with having me around?
Maybe it was as simple as what I’d told Ant, that I was a friend of hers, and by extension that meant he trusted me—but even that felt a little thin, considering we had only met a couple of times and both of those we fell into bed together. I knew things between us had only been physical so far, but was there something else going on there from his side that I didn’t know about?
I felt a little flutter in my chest when I thought about it and realized that if he did have feelings for me, they weren’t exclusive to him. It might not have been much, but there was something there when I thought about him and remembered falling asleep in his arms after we’d hooked up. When I lingered on the power of his touch, of his words. I glanced around the apartment and remembered sneaking out of here first thing in the morning before either of them had woken up. Maybe it wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world if I had stuck around a little longer, made some breakfast, enjoyed the rush as they got Erin ready for school …
No. I pushed that to the back of my mind. Sure, it was cute in theory, but I knew that in practice that was the last thing in the world I wanted. If Logan had been single and child-free and as loose and easy as I was right now, maybe I would go for it with him, even if he was Ant’s brother. But back in reality, there was so much keeping us apart—the fact that I was his sister’s best friend and that she would take chunks out of both of us if she found out, his daughter, his job, my recent dumping, and rebound-seeking status. I could enjoy the little fantasy of fitting into their lives, but I knew that it would have been stupid of me to treat it as anything other than that—a fantasy. I was so far from being ready to settle down with anyone after what had happened with my ex, let alone someone with a kid who would need even more commitment from me than a regular romance. No, this was a dumb idea, and I wasn’t going to give it any more thought than that.
I picked up one of the books that were stacked on the table and started to flick through it just to keep myself distracted. It was hard to believe that only a few days before, I had been sneaking out of here, making it out of this apartment without being caught the only thing I wanted, because now I felt so relaxed that I couldn’t imagine a place in the world I would rather be at that moment.
Chapter 8
Logan
I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that note all the way through my shift. Who was it from? Well, that wasn’t so much the question now, as was how my ex had managed to smuggle it into my work and dump it in my pocket.
She was always playing games like this, swinging into my life occasionally full of this certainty that she was going to take Erin from me and claim the custody she’d never really bothered to fight for. I usually ignored it since it came in the form of a few texts a couple of times a year threatening all sorts of bullshit, but this was a step up even for her, and I had to admit that it had unsettled me.
But I made it through the shift by keeping focused and working my ass off so that I couldn’t waste too much brain space on anything but what needed to be done at the moment. And before I knew it, I was finished—a little later than I’d thought, and I hoped that Nina wouldn’t be too annoyed that I’d kept her hanging around the apartment for so long. I drove home quickly, and when I arrived I snuck up the stairs so as not to wake Erin, unlocked the door, and slipped inside.
“Oh, hey,” Nina smiled at me, getting to her feet, and speaking softly. “You’re back.”
“Yeah, and I’m really sorry I’m late.” I pulled a face at her. “I got caught up with work, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine, really.” She waved her hand. “I actually … uh, I think I actually had a good time.”
“You think?” I cocked my head at her and grinned. Even though I was just back from work and should have been exhausted, I wanted nothing more than to spend a little more of the evening with her if I could somehow convince her to stick around.
“I mean, I’m not good with kids.” She shook her head. “So I think I did an alright job. But who knows, I probably traumatized her for life or something.”
“What did you get up to?” I asked, going to make myself a drink. “You want something?”
“Uh, what are you having?”
“I was thinking of coffee, but maybe something stronger now I think of it,” I shrugged. “Wine?”
“I would love a glass,” she agreed and settled back into her seat at the dining table. She looked like she belonged there, and I had to admit it was nice having someone over the age of ten to come home to for a change. I poured her a glass of a decent dry white that I managed to procure from work when they over-ordered, and I took my seat opposite her.
“I really can’t thank you enough for helping me out,” I told her. “I would have been all the way up shit creek without you.”
“Ant called while you were away.” She gestured to the phone. “She was busy this evening. I think she was glad that I was able to come up and help instead.”
“I’ll bet she was.” I shook my head. “What was it, a guy?”
“How did you guess?”
She grinned. “Because I was always the one picking up the pieces after she got her heart broken as a teenager.” I sighed. “Though I supposed I deferred that duty to you at some point.”
“You’re welcome.” She raised her glass. “Seems like you trust me with a whole lot of your family, huh?”
“Seems that way,” I agreed, and I took a long sip of my wine. I should have sent her home, stuck my head in on Erin, then gone to bed, but I was buzzing with energy, the tips of my fingertips zinging with excitement at her being here.
“Your daughter seems sweet.” She glanced in the direction of the hallway and grinned fondly.
“Did she show you her books?” I asked. “She’s always into showing anyone who comes through the door her collection.”
“She told me all about it,” she said with a nod and
a smile. “It was actually pretty sweet. Though I haven’t read anything to speak of in years.”
“Yeah, I was never much one for books until Erin started getting into them, and I suddenly had to catch up on all the children’s literature from the last hundred years.” I chuckled. “She’s turned me into a bit of a buff.”
“You can say that again,” Nina shot back playfully, and I felt that chemistry between us ratchet up a notch. We had already broken the promise we’d made to each other, not to go any further than we already had so as not to hurt Ant, but I had promised her some kind of reward for her time and effort.
“So, how was work?” she asked. “Was is it you do again?”
“I work as a chef,” I replied. “And it was good. I think it keeps me sane because it’s the only time I really get to interact with other adults who aren’t my sister or the parents at the school.”
“You should cook me something sometime,” she suggested, raising her eyebrows.
“I’m sure I could come up with something,” I replied, and she grinned widely—so wide it looked as though it was set to split her face in two. I liked the way it seemed to light up her entire face, as though the smile was meant for only me.
“I really can’t thank you enough for stepping in and helping out here.” I shook my head. “I would have been really fucked if you hadn’t been there to give me a hand.”
“That’s what neighbors are for, isn’t it?” she remarked, running her hands through her hair. “Besides, I seem to remember that you were going to give me a damn good reason to help you out.”
I remembered our conversation outside her apartment, and I cocked an eyebrow. “You aren’t a little tired for that?” I asked, and she shook her head.
“For you?” She bit her lip. “No way.”
I sat there and just stared at her for a long moment, and I tried to ignore the voice at the back of my head that was telling me what a seriously dumb idea this would turn out to be. If Ant found out …
But then I saw the way her eyes softened as they dropped to my mouth, and all the resolve I was clinging on to went straight out the window. She seemed to sense it, and she moved toward me and ran her thumb over my jawline, right to that sensitive spot where my ear met my throat.
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