Page 48 of Accidental Vegas Vows

His hand fisted the sheet, and all at once, I was far more awake.

“Please don’t,” I breathed, gripping as much fabric as I could in my hands, my cheeks heating. I wasn’t wearing a single bit of clothing beneath the sheets, and up until this moment, I hadn’t considered that I might need to.

The line between his brows deepened for a moment before he realized. “Oh. Oh, shit, sorry,” he fumbled, taking a step back from the bed and raising his hands. “You should, uh, get dressed. And pack a bag.”

I shook my head and pulled a single arm out of the sheets. “Pass me my shirt,” I said, pointing aimlessly in the direction of my abandoned, gigantic sleeping shirt that I’d left somewhere off the side of the bed.

Within a second it was in my hand.

I ducked beneath the covers and pulled the shirt over my head, wiggling until it was situated well enough over my body. He waited silently, his presence almost forgettable, but when I pulled back the sheets and forced myself to sit up, he was still there, still waiting, still expectant.

“Right. Okay,” I said to myself, pushing back my mop of hair from my face and feeling far too vulnerable with nothing on my lower half but the bottom of my shirt. “Explain to me exactly what you mean by a vacation.”

————

“DISNEYLAND?”

Noah’s screeching voice splintered straight through my eardrums, momentarily deafening me and filling my ears with a high-pitched ringing.

I couldn’t help but laugh at how cute it was.

“Does that sound like a good idea?” Damien asked, eyes widened at his shrieking son. When he’d pitched it to me, he seemed excited himself, but I could see the worry in his eyes that maybe this wasn’t the right choice — that perhaps he was doing what he’d done before when he’d taken Noah shopping, when he’d spoiled the kid rotten in the hopes that it would win his favor.

But this didn’t come from a need to make him feel at home, it didn’t come from a need to bond with him in unhealthy ways.

It came from a want — a want to take a vacation to somewhere he’d never been, and have a new experience with his son. And me, for some reason. But I wasn’t about to say no to a trip to Disney.

“YES!”

Noah’s chest rose and fell rapidly as he gripped the sheets on his far too large bed, his curly brown hair sticking up in all directions, his toy car abandoned beside him, his pajama top slouched at an angle. Damien sat at his feet, halfway up the bed, and from where I stood in the doorway, it was almost like a private moment. Both of their attention focused wholly on each other.

It was hard to believe it had only been two weeks.

“And if you’re okay with it,” Damien started, shifting a little on the comforter so he could glance back over his shoulder, right at me, “Olivia’s coming too.”

Noah’s bloodcurdling scream ripped through the walls of the house and he freed himself from the sheets, crawled across the short distance, and threw his arms around his dad’s neck, practically hanging from him like a baby gorilla. Damien’s arm curled around him as he tucked him into his chest, his gaze flicking between me and the boy in his arms.

He looked so… soft.

There wasn’t a better way to describe it — it was as if every fine wrinkle smoothed, as if the pressure of the world that normally showed in the way his jaw ticked or the way he stood with his shoulders high, had just… settled. As if none of it mattered.

I wasn’t sure if the swelling in my chest was from Noah’s eccentric excitement or the calm that stemmed from watching the two of them interact. But it made me feel good, for once, to be wanted in whatever form by both of them.

“We’ll take my boat down to Long Beach,” Damien said, his eyes locking on mine as he spoke to his practically vibrating son. “We should get there by morning and can spend the entire day tomorrow in the park. And as long as Olivia’s up for it, we can stay the night and go back again the next day.”

I shot Damien a soft smile and nodded once. “I might need to do some work in between, but yeah, we can do that.”

He shook his head. “You’re not working. I already contacted your manager.”

You just hired me as a full-time employee and I’ve already taken about half of that time off because of you. I wanted to say it, but I knew what he was doing — he was giving me this time as paid time off. He was giving me far more than the contract had said when I signed it.

I was appreciative, but I couldn’t help but feel it was a little unfair to everyone else who worked there who wasn’t looking after his son, and who hadn’t slept with him.

————

When Damien said boat, I’d been imagining what any normal, sane human would — an average-sized boat, maybe a speedboat if he was expecting to arrive in time for us to get a hotel and sleep before going to Disney.

I had not imagined the monstrosity in front of me on the dock.

---