Page 75 of Love Song, Take Two

Tatum shrugged. “We did not black out, we…had too much fun.”

Then her friends were pushing to their feet, stretching as they stood up. “On that note,” Sadie said through a yawn, “we’re heading out. Thanks for the pick-up and the coffee, rockstar.”

Fletcher tipped his head towards the women and Micah waved as they let themselves out of the house. She was halfway through her coffee when Emery and Fletcher joined her, plates loaded with food. For a long moment, nobody said anything. The only sounds in the kitchen were the light scraping of cutlery against their plates.

“Did you have fun, Mom?”

She nodded, glancing at her daughter then at her boyfriend, before smiling. “There was a mechanical bull riding competition and as you can imagine Tatum and Sadie wanted to participate.”

Fletcher’s lips twitched, but she was glad he didn’t say anything. He’d said enough about her penchant for riding. If he’d seen her last night, he would have most definitely been impressed with her skills.

“Did you win?”

“Not even close.” She laughed, recalling how many times they fell off the bull. “Pretty sure I’ve collected more bruises.”

Emery shook her head. “It’s crazy how the three of you have stayed the same my whole life.”

“The magic of lifelong friendships.”

“You have any friends like that, Fletch?”

He shook his head at Emery’s question and Micah frowned. “What about the band?”

“We’re friends and I love them with my whole heart. But we’re not the kinds to go drinking or bull riding together.”

“Erin?”

Emery’s head snapped between the two of them. “Who is Erin?”

“Another friend,” he explained. “But also, no. Maybe you and Nico will have that kind of friendship when you get older.”

Emery blushed as she shook her head. “Maybe.”

Micah smiled and slid off her stool to refill her coffee. Standing on the other side of the counter, she watched her two favorite people. “I like this. Three of us having breakfast together.”

“Does this mean more sleepovers?” Emery asked, glancing sideways at Fletcher.

“Uh…”

“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing.”

“Em,” Micah sighed and her daughter grinned.

“I’m glad you’re here, Fletch. Thank you for breakfast.”

Then she was gone, leaving them alone in the kitchen.

“She’s going to give me hell about this for a while, isn’t she?”

Micah laughed and came over to give him a quick kiss. “I managed for fourteen years, you’ll be fine.”

And not once did she think about how those words might sound.

An hour later—they made Emery help them clean up—the house was empty of friends and teenagers. With Emery on Christmas break, she had already grabbed her things and left to go see Nico. That meant Micah and Fletcher standing on opposite sides of the kitchen island, smiling at each other, letting the silence wrap around them.

“Now that we’re alone—” Micah twirled towards him, aware that her robe was flaring open to flash her mostly bare legs and delicious cleavage ”—what can we do with all this time?”

“A shower, for starters.” She gasped as she came to a halt and put her hands on her hips, staring at Fletcher. “What? You might look edible as fuck right now, sweetheart, but you do not smell that good.”

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