Page 17 of Single All the Way

“Ben’s got a big heart,” Olivia said. “I don’t think he would’ve offered if he didn’t mean it.”

I frowned, knowing she was probably right, but still… “I’m not good at needing help.”

“Oh, do I get that,” Chloe said, her brown eyes sympathetic.

“And at the holidays? I feel like such an imposition.” I broke off another bite and popped it in my mouth.

I glanced at Skyler to make sure she wasn’t paying attention, even though she wouldn’t understand everything we said. She was being goofy with Harrison, each of them taking exaggerated bites of their cookie then giggling.

“I’ve been trying to think of how I could pay him back and make it worth his while to uproot his whole household for weeks,” I continued.

“I can think of one way.” Olivia’s brows crawled up her forehead suggestively, drawing laughter, even from me.

“A BJ here and there?” Hayden added. “Makes all the difference in the world for a guy.”

“You guys are terrible!” I said, again checking the kids, who of course had no idea what we were talking about.

“She’s my most inappropriate friend,” Sierra declared proudly.

“She’s not wrong though,” Chloe added.

“Ladies!” I said as if I was scandalized, not letting my mind go where they were suggesting, even for a moment.

Harrison climbed down from his chair and nearly darted off. Hayden caught his hand and wiped him clean. “You can go look at the books now,” she told him, pointing at the kids’ corner, where there was a rack of well-loved board books and wooden puzzles that had been there for as long as I could remember.

“Why don’t you help Harrison find a book,” I said to Skyler as she inhaled her last bite. She loved being the older kid for a while since she was the baby of our family and now the youngest at Ben’s. I wiped her hands, and she pranced off.

“On a serious note,” Olivia said, “are there feelings between you two?”

“Ben and me?” My mind flashed to this morning when he’d brushed my hair back so intimately. “No,” I said automatically.

“He’s nice to look at,” Hayden said.

“Caring, compassionate, kind…” Olivia added.

“He sounds like he’d be a catch,” Sierra said, and I laughed.

“You guys are so transparent.” I’d known going into this roommate situation that people would talk, but I didn’t worry about it, as long as nothing harmed my kids.

“Sierra’s right,” Olivia said.

“Do you want me to set you up with him?” I teased her. In the back of my mind, however, I thought Olivia and Ben wouldn’t be right together. She was too extroverted for him.

Olivia wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think I’d do well with farm life or instant momhood. But you, Emerson… You’ve got the mom thing down.”

“Mom thing, maybe, but farm life?” I told them how Gordon the rooster had scared the crap out of Skyler and me this morning.

“So many cock jokes, I can’t decide which one to say,” Hayden said.

“Cocks can be scary,” Olivia said.

“Or magical,” Hayden shot back, sending us into fits of laughter.

“Not sure I’ll look at my brother-in-law the same ever again,” Chloe said about Hayden’s husband, Zane.

“Maybe the handsome Dr. Holloway has a magical cock,” Olivia said, her attention back on me.

After the laughter died down, they looked at me as if there was a serious suggestion somewhere in there that I needed to put to rest.

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