“Well, don’t get used to it,” he teased. “This is meant to be a treat, right, Erin?”
“Right,” Erin agreed as she chowed down on her food. And I did the same; I tried to remember the last time my ex had bothered to put together a meal for me, even cereal and toast, and I came up blank. So that was another thing Logan had going for him over my ex. Not that I was comparing the two because that would have implied that I was thinking about dating Logan, and there was no way in hell that was actually going to happen.
But the pancakes were good, and I was hungry, so I ate like my life depended on it, enjoying every mouthful and happy to listen to Erin as Logan asked her what she was going to be doing at school that day. There was something pleasantly domestic about the morning, even though that was never something that had appealed to me before. I mean, it was fun to play pretend, but I knew I could never have made something like this stick.
Erin finished up her food, and she bounded through to the bathroom to finish getting ready for school; Logan looked after her and shook his head.
“You know, I think this is the most energy I’ve seen her with in the morning ever,” he remarked. “I think she likes having someone else around to perform for.”
“Don’t all kids?” I offered in response, even though I had literally no clue if anything Erin was doing was normal or typical.
He grinned at me, seeing straight through me. “You’ve never really been around kids before, huh?” he remarked, and I raised my eyebrows.
“Is it that obvious?” I shot back, and he shrugged.
“Ant mentioned that you hadn’t really had any kids in your life before, that’s all,” he replied. “You did really well with her last night and this morning.”
“I’m sorry that she caught me,” I blurted out. “I honestly didn’t intend it to work out that way. I was just going for my keys, and she caught me just as I was about to head out the door, so I had to come up with something, so she wouldn’t catch on.”
“No, I get it.” He shook his head. “We shouldn’t have … I shouldn’t have let you sleep over if I didn’t want that to happen.”
I paused for a moment, looking at him, and trying to figure out if he had just admitted to me that there was some part of him that had wanted this to happen. It wouldn’t have surprised me because I was having to work double-time to convince myself that I had wanted this too on some level. I didn’t know why, but part of me craved this. Not just the sex, though that had been amazing. But the stability, the sureness of what came afterward. I barely knew this guy, and yet when I was around him, I felt safe and calm, as though this was the way things were meant to be. That was the father in him, I supposed, but it was nice after what a clusterfuck my life had been in recent memory.
“If you ever need me to look after her again,” I replied before I could stop myself. I didn’t know what I was doing; I had already inserted myself into this man’s life far enough, and now I was encouraging him to involve me even more?
But he nodded and smiled. “You know what, I might just take you up on that,” he remarked, and then that filthy smile that I recognized so well even now spread across his face. “If only for that welcome back from work. That was really something.”
I felt a twinge between my legs and chewed my lip. It was hard to restrain myself, even knowing his daughter was in the next room when he was looking at me like that. His eyes traced up and down my body, and I shifted on the spot.
“Yeah, that was something,” I managed at last, dragging my gaze away from his. And just then, Erin came back in with her cute little backpack on her shoulders and a big smile on her face.
“I’m ready to go,” she told us. “Nina, are you coming to school with me?”
Logan looked at me, eyebrows raised, but I figured I had probably already gone far enough this morning. Spending the night and having breakfast had already pushed my luck far enough, and I didn’t want to test it any further.
“No, I should get back to mine.” I smiled at her.
“But I’ll see you again soon, right?” she asked, eyes wide. I glanced at Logan, who shrugged, leaving it up to me.
“Sure you will,” I promised her. I couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of my mouth. Only twenty-four hours ago, I would have said anything to do with kids was a hard no-go, and yet here I was, promising this little girl that I was going to see her again. And I couldn’t let her down now that I’d offered.
“Awesome,” she said beaming, and she took Logan’s hand and they headed for the door. Logan opened it and crouched down to Erin’s level.
“Hey, you go ahead of me, right?” he suggested. “I’ll race you to the bottom. Meet you there?”
“I’m going to win,” she warned him, and with that, she took off.
Logan stood back up and turned to me, and I felt desire pulse through me once more. He pushed me back up against the door and kissed me. It was the kind of kiss that made you feel as though your feet had lifted off the ground a little, the kind that forced you to catch your breath and think twice; his hands were gripping my hips, drawing me against him, and his tongue was deep in my mouth. It happened so fast I hardly had time to process it, but when he pulled back, I was panting slightly.
“And what about me?” he asked, brushing his nose against mine. “Do I get to see you again?”
“As long as you kiss me like that,” I blurted out, and he grinned and planted one more on my cheek.
“Then it’s a date,” he replied, and he followed his daughter down the stairs. I watched him go and then closed the door behind him, leaning back against the wood and touching my fingers to my lips for a moment as though I was trying to recreate the feel of his lips on mine. And then I realized that I was smiling. Beaming. I had a grin on my face half a mile wide, and it couldn’t have felt better. I had no idea what the fuck was going on between us, but that kiss had left my head and my body fizzing, and I was having trouble telling myself that this was only meant to be a little fun.
Chapter 10
Logan
After I dropped Erin off at school and headed down for work, I found myself whistling. Actually whistling. Like something had put a pep in my step, a spring in my stride.
“You’re in a good mood today.” Elijah cocked his eyebrow at me as he saw me getting ready. “Something I should know?”
“Nope, nothing.” I shook my head. “Just had a good night, that’s all.”
“How’s that little girl of yours doing?” he asked conversationally. “She must be getting big now, huh?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” I said with a grin. “And yeah, she’s doing great. She’s a great little girl.”
“Well, if she’s putting a smile on your face, I’ll take it.” He shrugged and let me get to my prep for the day. I checked the menus and started on work, and as I leaned into the mindless job, I found my head swimming back to Nina and me the night before.
But it wasn’t just what had happened the night before. If it had just been sex, I could have put it down to me just enjoying actually getting laid again, after what felt like a lifetime away from the scene. But this morning had been something seriously special too, and I couldn’t shake the memory of it from my head.
She had been trying to sneak out, and honestly, if I had been the one to catch her, I would have encouraged her to head off before Erin got up. It wasn’t that I didn’t want them around each other—hell, it was a little late given that she had taken care of her the night before—but if Erin had caught her staying over, that would have been hellish to explain. Erin had never really known me to be with a woman, given that Samantha had dropped out of the picture pretty swiftly after she was born, and her mother had only been in her life very intermittently since then. Samantha had made a couple of moves on me since she left, but I knew her too well to fall for that shit. She wasn’t trustworthy, and there was no way I was putting either myself or Erin through the shit she pulled if I could avoid it.
But Nina had come up with a decent excuse for being back in the apartment, and Erin was young enough to probably not notice that she was wearing the same clothes as the night before and hadn’t made it home after we’d sent her to bed. Even if she did figure it out, she didn’t make a big deal of it—in fact, she seemed glad that Nina had stuck around, and she insisted on us having breakfast together. Which was more fun than I’d care to admit, even to myself.
Eating together like that had felt dangerously close to normal, and I knew that I had to get myself in hand and not let it get to my head. Because yes, having Nina around was awesome. I loved coming home to someone after a long day of work, loved being able to have sex again, loved having someone to help out with Erin in the morning—someone who Erin seemed to adore as well. It couldn’t have been more perfect. And yet, I barely knew this woman. Even though I felt like I knew her sexually back to front, that there was a click of understanding between us that I couldn’t shake. We had barely had more than twenty minutes of conversation at a time without being cut off by something. That wasn’t enough time to decide whether I actually wanted this woman in my life, or in my daughter’s. And yet, just thinking about her—thinking about the kiss we shared that morning before I left the apartment, the way she had responded to my advance—I just wanted to duck work, head back to the apartment, and spend the whole rest of the day with her.
That was the thing about having kids—it meant that I couldn’t just waste away those long, fun hours with someone new, getting to know each other inside out and enjoying that first flush of new romance. Things were always going to be limited between us because of Erin. I couldn’t just dump my daughter off and go on a date—well, I could, but the only person I could do that with was Ant, and if she found out what was going on between Nina and me, I had a feeling it was going to blow up in my face.
So for the time being, I would just have to stick to hoping that things carried on the way they were between us. It was a weird little limbo to be stuck in, and I didn’t want to keep her in there with me if she didn’t want it, but at the same time, there was no way I was going to try to cut things off now. No matter how much the logical part of my brain told me that it was the right choice, I wanted to get to know this woman. I didn’t believe in fate or destiny, but if I did, that’s exactly how I would have described her just happening to move in downstairs from me just when I felt like I needed someone new in my life.
I happily carried on with my shift and found my mind drifting back to Nina all the time. What was she doing? I would love to bring her down here to cook for her at some point, so I could actually show her what I could do with something more than pancakes. Or maybe I’d take her out to somewhere else in the city, somewhere one of my old friends from culinary school would be able to set us up with a good table and cheap wine where we could spend the night talking and …
“Hey, Logan?” Elijah stopped me in my tracks as I went to put a tray in the oven.
I blinked and looked up at him. “Yeah?”
“Your phone’s ringing.” He jerked his head toward the cloakroom. “It’s been going on and off for ten minutes. You should really deal with it, make sure it’s not something serious.”
“Shit,” I muttered, and I dried my hands off and headed to take the call. “Thanks for letting me know, Elijah.”
“No problem,” he called back. “Let me know what’s going on, alright?”
“Will do,” I replied, and I closed the door behind me and grabbed my phone from my pocket. My heart sank when I saw who was on the other end of the line, but I knew I had to take the call.
“Samantha, hey.” I brought the phone to my ear and tried to keep my voice reasonably upbeat so she couldn’t sense the wince on my face as I greeted her. How long had it been since I heard from her? She had sent me a gift for Erin two months after her birthday, and I had decided to hold it over till the next year, so my daughter could at least pretend that her mother actually gave a shit about her.
“Logan, I’ve been calling you and calling you,” she snapped. “Where the fuck have you been?”
“I’m at work, Sam,” I told her. “I can’t just drop everything to take your calls, I’m sorry.”
“Well, I’m the mother of your child,” she shot back, as though she had ever acted like Erin’s mother at any point over the course of her damn life.
“Yeah, I know, but I can’t always just—”
“Anyway, I need to speak to you,” she cut me off, and I could hear her long nails drumming on top of something; when we had been dating that had always been a major pet peeve of mine, the fact that she always had those long, pointed talons that she seemed to drum off everything in reaching distance. Including me, sometimes.
“Do you?” I asked. “Can this wait till later? Service is about to start, and I need to get back to—”
“No, it can’t,” she snapped back. “I need to talk to you about Erin.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” I asked tiredly. I knew I was being a sarcastic ass, but just speaking to her for this long was giving me a damn stress headache. The sooner this could be over with, the better.
“You need to let me see her,” she told me loftily. “I’m in the city, and I want to see her.”
“If you want to set up a schedule to actually spend time with her, then we can work something out—”
“You really think I’m going to let you fuck me over like that again?” she demanded, scoffing as though the very thought was ridiculous. “You always try to keep me away from her.”
“No, I don’t,” I reminded her. “You never want to set up anything regular with her. If you did, I’d be happy to work something out, and we can take it from there.”
“You know that I don’t have time to set up a schedule.” She sighed heavily as though I was asking her something that I should have already known would be literally impossible for her to maintain.
“Why not?” I pressed. Usually, I would just nod along until she hung up the phone and forgot to call back for another two months, but today I was feeling bolder. Maybe it was the night with Nina, or maybe it was the note that she’d somehow gotten to my work. I didn’t want to fuck with her today, and that was her problem for calling me.
“Because I’m going in and out of the city with my work!” she exclaimed, clearly pissed.
“And what work are you doing right now?” I pressed.
“I’ve just got my massage certification,” she told me, pleased with herself. “I’m traveling with a salon.”
“Sounds very high-class,” I shot back, and she sighed heavily again, a rush of static filling my ear down the phone.
“I’m telling you, I’m getting my life together, and now I want my daughter back,” she replied, and my heart stopped dead in my chest.
“What do you mean, you want her back?” I began to pace the small space of the cloakroom, feeling like my eyes were going to pop out of my head.
“I mean, I want to see her,” she swiftly corrected herself, but she had already shot herself in the foot and revealed her true intentions.
“You want to see her, or you want to take her?” I demanded. “You really think I’m just going to let you walk back into my daughter’s life—”
“Our daughter,” she reminded me, but I shook my head.
“No, not our daughter, my daughter,” I corrected her. “I’m the one who’s actually been raising her these last nine years, you remember? After you fucking dumped the two of us and took off?”
“Sounds like you’re not over it,” she purred. “I’m sure I could do something to make it right, baby …”
“I’m not over the fact that you abandoned the most important person in my life,” I shot back, really pissed now. “I don’t give a shit that you left me. In fact, I’m glad you did. My life is a million times better without you in it, and you should know that.”
“Fine,” she fired back, irritated that her ploy to seduce me had already failed. She always tried it, as though I ha
d just been sitting around all these years waiting for her to fall back into bed with me so we could play at being a happy family. Well, that wasn’t how this worked. That wasn’t how any of this worked.
“You need to let me see her.” She turned back to her original tack. “You have to see how ridiculous you’re being, right?”
“I’m not the one calling up out of nowhere after months of not making an effort and acting like we owe you something,” I reminded her.
“Hey, I sent her that present, didn’t I?” she protested.
“Two months late,” I reminded her. “I haven’t even given it to her yet. It’s going to be for next year, so I can at least pretend that her mother knows when her fucking birthday is.”
“She’s just as much a part of me as she is a part of you,” she hissed down the line, her anger flashing up in a rush. She had never had a good grasp of her temper, and clearly, nothing had changed with regards to that.
“That’s not true, and you can’t play that card at me anymore,” I reminded her. “You tried, remember? The last dozen fucking times you tried to pull this shit on me. Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not dumb enough or hopeful enough to think that you’ve actually changed. You need to prove it to me, not call me up and tell me what the fuck I’m going to do with my life.”
“You’re a fucking asshole,” she snapped, and I could hear her fingers drumming more agitatedly.
“Yeah, probably,” I agreed. “But I’d rather be an asshole to you than a bad father to her.”
“It’s going to scar her, you know, growing up without a mother,” she warned me, and for a moment my memory jumped to Nina and Erin that morning, the two of them getting ready for school together. A smile flickered onto my face at the memory, even though I knew I shouldn’t have let it stick like that.
“It’s going to scar her more having someone like you around,” I told her firmly. “Call me back, and we can figure something out if you want to, but this has to be on my terms, alright?”
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