Page 64 of Knight Life In Vegas

“Exactly like your mother. I’m looking to expand to Las Vegas, so maybe you’ll live in one soon enough.”

“Do they have pools?” Sammy asked.

“A pool could definitely be arranged. Seems like a requirement when it gets so hot.”

Charlotte took each of their little backpacks and passed them to me. “They usually go on the front seat, so you’ll have to hold them.”

She helped each of the boys into their booster seats in the back, making sure they were secure before we slipped back into our respective seats. I held their backpacks on my lap, feeling oddly domestic. It all reminded me so much of when Bryce was young. I’d been trying to build an empire at the time, but I usually took a late lunch so I could pick him up from school while Emily would take him in the mornings.

“Did you two have a good day at school?” Charlotte asked her children.

“Jimmy brought his pet frog in!” Ollie yelled.

Heaven help me, I’d forgotten how loud children could be in confined spaces.

“I bet the frog didn’t appreciate that,” said Charlotte.

“No, his mommy had to come get it. Teacher said backpacks are not a good home for frogs.”

“Do you like frogs?” Sammy asked me.

“I haven’t seen one for a very long time, but I liked them when I was little. We would go camping in the summer and look for them.”

“Mommy, can we go camping?” Ollie asked.

“We’ll see,” she replied, getting us back on the road to their apartment.

“That means no,” Sammy informed me.

“It means we’ll see,” she insisted.

“You need a lot of supplies to go camping,” I told them. “There’s nowhere to store them in your place.”

Charlotte gave me a sidelong look, a little smile on her lips, as I fielded the children.

They asked me a million questions during the drive, and Charlotte expertly navigated them when we returned to the apartment, getting them washed up and sitting down at the coffee table with some activities to practice their penmanship while she threw together a meal.

“This looks much more substantial than a snack,” I pointed out, caught hovering between her and the boys, unsure what to do.

“We have dinner right after school. They’re always hungry so there’s hardly any fights about getting them to eat. They can have snacks later if they need to.”

“I never thought of that with Bryce. He always gorged himself on snacks and then it was all-out warfare to get him to eat dinner.” I watched her brown ground beef, admiring the way she kept an equal eye on the food and her boys. “Do you actually want me to stay here?”

“Only if you want to.” She poured a tin of tomatoes, some extra water, a box of macaroni pasta, and spices into the pan before covering it to simmer. “I’m sure you would prefer your own space, but the offer is there.”

Now that I’d had her, I didn’t want to go anywhere. Maybe the guilt would be worth it to go to sleep next to her and wake up the same way. “The rental I wanted wasn’t available, so the one I’m in for the week is nothing special. I would rather stay here.”

Charlotte nodded, moving to stand close enough to me that our sides brushed. “I’ll clear out a drawer for you and we can move the family schedule into the living room so you can see.”

“Family schedule?”

She disappeared briefly into the boys’ room and returned with a poster board that had the day broken up into chunks including times for wake up and bedtime, school, activities, and meals. “It’s our lifeline. We all do better when we know what’s coming.”

Charlotte taped it up in the hallway and I slid into the kitchen to stir the concoction on the stove.

“How do you feel about chores?” she asked.

“I…usually hire out for those.”

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