Page 15 of Bad & Bossy

“Sorry it’s a mess,” I sighed. She hadn’t visited me in about two months. The last time she swung by was when she was visiting our parents, and thankfully, she hadn’t ended up at my house. We’d met up at the park instead and then she was off again. She lived out in Miami the majority of the time, but she was always bouncing from place to place. I hoped she wouldn’t judge my home and had spent time in worse. “It’s a bit hard to keep on top of everything while taking care of Drew.”

“Hmm. I’ll have to work on that,” she mumbled, collapsing onto the sofa in a heap. “What happened to your leg?”

I glanced down at the open wound poking out of my leggings. Shit, it’s swelling. “Tripped on my jog. Just need to wash it out.”

“Looks nasty.”

“Thanks,” I deadpanned. I glanced down at Drew as he drooled over his little white shirt, his eyes practically glued shut. I knew I needed to move him to the bassinet, but god, I didn’t want him to wake up and kick off. “Are you visiting Mom and Dad?”

She blinked up at me. The dull, ugly brown of my sofa almost made her seem less lifelike than she normally did. “No. I came to help.”

“What?”

“You said you were struggling to juggle work and Drew and that the nanny wasn’t always available. I came to help you out.”

Did I tell her that?

“Maybe he’ll be less, uh, evil when he’s not on FaceTime,” she said, glancing at him warily.

“He’s asleep, Vee. He’s not going to start babbling demon summons.”

My sister didn’t know the first thing about looking after children. She had none of her own and often avoided them as much as she could, though, to be fair, I was the same way before I found out I was pregnant. Maybe it wouldn’t be so awful if she double-teamed it with the nanny the first few times.

Though I did have a worrying suspicion she’d try to have him exorcized behind my back.

“So where am I staying?”

I snapped my gaze to her quickly. “What?”

“Mom and Dad said I couldn’t stay with them.”

“Jesus,” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose between my eyes. Her need to insert herself without asking permission beforehand was something she’d carried with her since adolescence. The number of times she’d weaseled herself into my sleepovers and parties sat heavily on my mind. “Well, I’ve got a spare room but I don’t have a bed?—”

“That’s fine. I’ll buy a bed,” she grinned as she cut me off. “I can sleep with you tonight and then tomorrow morning I’ll have one delivered. Problem solved.”

Problem solved. More like a problem created.

The stinging in my knee throbbed. “Fine. Whatever.”

Chapter 5

Cole

I’d made a horrible mistake with my decision to go back to work so quickly. Waking up at six-thirty in the morning was never easy, even when I could drink the exhaustion away. But after months of waking up when my body said it was time, not the alarm, was even harder.

Day one had been agonizing. Day two had been painful. Day three, today, was only slightly better but still had a nagging sting to it.

“What’s on the docket for you today?” I asked, glancing across the center console of my dark green Rolls Royce.

Bobby shrugged. “Figured I’d check out what Boulder has to offer. Your house gets a bit lonely.”

I knew that feeling far too well.

The reds of the cobblestone streets reflected the morning light back up toward the sky, the college students shielding their eyes from the harshness of Boulder in the early fall. The clubs and restaurants had long closed down from the night before, but there was a tickling in my spine that wanted me to pull up to one of them, bang on the door, and force my way in.

But I wasn’t going to do that.

I pulled to a stop at a red light, my car idling quietly, and tried to focus anywhere but the bar I used to frequent located on my left. Bobby hit my leg gently, and I glanced at his hand, following his pointed finger beyond the hood of the car to a group of young, college-aged women crossing the road in front of us. They stared at the car, their mouths agape and grinning. One of them waved and another shouted something I couldn’t hear.

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