Page 21 of Second Chance for the Single Mom

I could tell I’d struck a nerve. Lucas looked away and shrugged. “I was sick of Detroit. Vancouver was familiar.”

“You didn’t move back,” I said slowly, “because of Haley?”

Surprise flared in Lucas’s eyes. “Of course not. You know that’s not the reason.”

“Do I?”

“We were never compatible,” Lucas said. We had chemistry in bed, obviously. But that was it.”

“You were an idiot teenager back then.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“My point,” I said, “is that you were a different person back then. Now you’re an adult. You’ve matured, bro. You’re adulting so fucking hard now.”

“Thanks, I guess?”

“I’m just saying, Haley might be interested in the new version of Lucas,” I explained. “And if that’s the reason you decided to move home, then I understand.”

Lucas turned and looked somewhere else. It was exactly what he used to do when we were kids and he didn’t want to admit something. For once, I knew to be quiet and wait for him to speak next.

“That’s not why I came back,” he finally said. “Besides, you heard what Haley said. This was just a one-time thing.”

I decided not to push the issue any further. It was impossible to get through to Lucas when he was stubborn about something like this. But I tucked the information away for later. For when he eventually lowered his walls anddidwant to talk about it.

“Just a one-time thing,” I agreed.

But fuck, every cell in my body was screaming at me to see Haley again.

And I was certain Lucas felt the same way.

12

Haley

Sara was asleep on the couch in my above-the-garage apartment when I got home. I gently woke her, and she sleepily said, “I want to hearallabout it in the morning,” before retiring to the main house.

I checked to make sure Bran was sleeping, then got ready for bed.

But even though my body was exhausted from everything that had happened tonight, my mind raced.

Bran had never met his father. Lucas didn’t even know the boy existed until tonight. Yet both of them shared one unique quirk: they whistled while peeing.

How the hell was that possible? It’s not like there was a whistles-while-peeing gene that could be passed down from father to son.

Sara came over the next morning while Brandon was finishing up his breakfast. “Bran Bran, can you go play in your room? I need to talk to your mom.”

“Is it about the play date?” Bran asked.

I somehow kept my face totally blank. “No. It’s about something else.”

Bran thought about this for a moment, then hopped down from the chair and went running into his room.

“It most certainlyisabout your play date,” Sara told me. “Start from the beginning. I want to hear every detail about the threesome.”

I calmly sipped my coffee. “I promise to tell you all about it. But first, I have to confess something to you.”

Sara slowly settled her very pregnant bulk onto the couch. “I don’t like the sound of this. Is it bad?”

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