Page 89 of Rock On

“And you’re okay with leaving nursing to do admin work?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know yet.”

“That’s understandable. But why are you being weird?”

“What’s going to happen to me now that you’re back with Tommy?” she whispered. “I gave up my apartment to move in here and?—”

“Oh my god.” I reached out and immediately pulled her into a hug. “Wynter. You saved my life in the last year. Hell, since the day I found out I was pregnant. You’re not going anywhere. I have no idea what Tommy and I are doing going forward, but whatever it is, you’ll be with us. Or we’ll set you up in another apartment. Or even help you buy a house. We have more money than we’ll ever spend and?—”

“I don’t want money,” she interjected quickly. “I’ve saved a lot in the last year. I just need to know I’m not going to have to scramble to find a place to live.”

“You’re ridiculous,” I said, scowling at her. “You really think I’d do that to you? Come on. And Tommy’s always loved you. There’s plenty of room here for all of us.”

“I’d be a third wheel,” she said. “You guys are starting over. You don’t need your spinster older sister in the way.”

I nearly burst out laughing, but she was being serious.

“You’re eighteen months older than me!” I protested. “And technically I’m single too. We’re not spinsters. You’re waiting for the right guy. You absolutely should not settle. God knows, I didn’t.”

“Are you sure, Harley? Have you talked to Tommy about this?”

“We haven’t talked about moving in together yet,” I said. “We’re still working on our issues, and he has to get to know River better before we can decide anything like that. I promise, you will be part of any conversation that has to do with moving or living together.”

She chewed the inside of her cheek. “Okay.”

“Come on, let’s go have a glass of wine and you can tell me about your new job.”

“All right.” She followed me out of the pantry and got out wine glasses while I opened a bottle of wine. “They’re going to send me out of town to learn their payroll software. Even though I won’t be doing payroll, I guess the office manager has to be familiar with everything.”

“Yeah?” I cocked my head. “Where are you going?”

“Dallas, I think.” She took a sip of wine. “Am I crazy? Leaving nursing to work behind the scenes?”

“I think we all need a change sometimes. And working in the ER has been hard.”

“I know, but it’s rewarding too. Helping people.”

“You’ll still be helping people, just in a different way. And you have to prioritize yourself, you know? Making more money is important too.”

“I won’t be around as much to help with River.”

“I’m planning to hire someone to help out full-time. We might be going on tour with the band, so we won’t even be here.”

“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “I didn’t realize that was a possibility.”

“There are a lot of possibilities. That’s why we need to finish this bottle of wine and catch up.”

“Then tell me everything.” She leaned forward on the counter. “And I want juicy details too.”

“Well, you’ll be spectacularly disappointed to find out that we had totally vanilla sex last night.”

“What?” She blinked. “You’re joking, right?”

“Nope. He wanted to prove I could get off without kink.”

“And… you did?”

I gave her a lopsided smile. “Apparently, all it takes is for my man to tell me he loves me when he’s inside me.”

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