Page 6 of An Adventure For Aster

“I guess,” Maxine said. “My husband always has his on, but he works in an office. Got anything good for lunch?”

They’d been walking back from dropping the kids off in the cafeteria. The only peace she got was her thirty minutes of lunch in her room and most times she was grading papers or looking at lesson plans.

She had work to do but had a feeling Maxine was going to be joining her.

That was always nice too. It’s not like Raine had much of a social life and couldn’t get work done at home.

Her only plan tonight was to visit her sister-in-law, Emma, and play with her nephew Drew. Her brother River was working nights this week and Emma had returned to work last week.

Though Emma worked remotely for a law firm out of New York, she could use a break and Raine was going to bring dinner over.

“Just a salad,” she said. “It’s easy.”

She put a big salad together each Sunday in a bowl and then transferred some to another container until it was gone. In her tiny apartment, with a skinny fridge, she didn’t have room to keep a lot and didn’t buy more than she needed for a few days anyway.

Not that she couldn’t afford it as much as she hated to throw anything out and liked things fresh.

Maybe it got her out seeing adults too and in the hopes she’d run into some sexy stranger reaching for apples with her.

She shook her head over that thought. Silly, but in this small town she knew so many people and no one caught her eye.

Raine once had what she thought was going to be her forever future and it didn’t work the way she imagined. From that point on, she didn’t get her hopes up for much.

“That’s the life of an elementary school teacher,” Maxine said. “Easy.”

They both laughed over a statement that had been told to them one too many times.

If there was one thing she hated, it was having her career dismissed as a play date with kids.

At the end of the day, she was knocking on her brother’s front door. Emma opened it up and took the bag of food out of her hands.

“Yum,” Emma said. “Chinese. I’ve been dying for it and am going to pig out and then hate myself tomorrow when I can’t zip up my jeans.”

“You look wonderful,” Raine said. “Not like someone who had a baby three months ago.”

“Thanks,” Emma said. “Weight wise, I’m only a few pounds off, but man, did my body change. My hips are still wide. It sucks that some of my pants don’t fit.”

Her sister-in-law had a great body with curves in the right places, and in Raine’s eyes, it was better than the teenage boy body she’d been stuck with.

No curves.

No hips.

Not a lot of fat.

Not that she was complaining about not having a lot of fat, but that went with the curves.

“They will fit in no time,” she said. “Where is my nephew? I need some cuddles.”

“He’s sleeping,” Emma said. “I’m sorry. I tried to keep him awake, but you can’t predict these things.”

“No worries,” she said. “He’ll wake up before I leave. If you’ve got things to do, go do them. Don’t feel as if you have to entertain me.”

“I’m good,” Emma said. “I want the company. Drew starts daycare in two weeks. I ended up going back to work a bit earlier than planned due to a few big cases. River figured we could work it out between us and since my employers are so flexible to let me continue to work remotely, I couldn’t tell them no.”

She knew Emma worked for Matthews Law Firm out of Albany, New York. Emma loved her boss, Ryan Matthews, who hated to lose her and did what he could to keep her on. She was positive that Emma chose to return earlier out of guilt rather than her employers asking.

“Did they even ask?” she asked.

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