Page 78 of Falling Together

Erin couldn’t help but smile back at her, and her breathing picked up due to their close proximity. “I think I said you wereokay.”

“Just okay? Are you sure about that?” Blair leaned even closer to Erin, causing her heart rate to pick up now too. “That’s not what you were saying last week when I—”

Do not pull her upstairs. It’s inappropriate. This is your son’s birthday. But, fuuuuck.Erin used all the strength she could muster to gently push Blair away. “You can’t talk to me like that right now.”

“Why? Because you don’t want it?” Blair made a point of running her eyes up and down the length of Erin’s body. “Or because you want it so bad you can hardly stand it.”

“I think you already know the answer to that.” Erin pushed past Blair, but before walking away, she checked for signs of anyone else around and when she found no one, she squeezed Blair’s ass.

Blair’s laughter followed behind her the rest of the way down the hall, and it was like music to her ears.

***

Nolan’s birthday party turned out to be a huge success, mostly thanks to Blair and her parents. All of the parents of Nolan’s friends seemed impressed, and Erin even managed to get a few of their numbers to set up future play dates. Some of the parents were under the impression that Blair was Nolan’s other mom, which Erin didn’t bother to correct, mainly because she had no idea how to actually describe their situation.

After the last parent and child left, Erin blew out a long breath. As much as she had enjoyed getting to know all of them, it was nice to be surrounded only by people she knew well.

“What can we help with?” April asked.

“You've done enough already.” Erin walked over to her backpack and dug through it until she found her keys. She pulled off her house key and threw it at April, who fumbled with it before giving up and letting it land on the floor. “Why don’t you all head back to my house and get yourselves settled?”

“Are you sure?” April looked around. “It looks like there’s still a lot to do.”

“We’re sure.” Blair walked up to Erin and put an arm around her waist. “You were such a big help in getting set up, and I know you had to leave at an ungodly hour to get here. Let us handle the rest.”

We. Us.Those words rang through Erin’s ears and made her heart skip a beat. She hadn’t realized how much she missed being part of a team. It felt good.Too good.There was that pit in her stomach again. Shereallyneeded to figure out how to stop that.

After saying goodbye to her family, Erin and Blair walked to the kitchen where Blair’s parents had already started cleaning up. “Please stop,” Erin told them. “You were so nice to host this partyandset it up. I can handle the clean up.”

“She’s right, parentals.” Blair pointed her thumb over her shoulder. “Let us do all of this.”

Erin turned toward Blair and poked her side. “I was obviously talking aboutyoutoo. You got Nolan a freaking bounce house.”

Blair smacked her hand on her forehead. “Shit. That reminds me. I forgot to give Nolan his actual gift.”

“Actualgift? There’s more?”

Blair’s parents looked at each other and gave one another a knowing look, then her mom subtly nodded at him before smiling back at Erin. “If you insist, we’ll leave you two to do this, while we take Moon for a walk.”

Erin watched as she quickly left the room with Blair’s dad following close behind. After they were gone, she turned toward Blair again. “Whatever you got him, you should take back. This is too much.”

Blair furrowed her eyebrows as she studied Erin’s face. “Too much because it’s not what you want or too much because you’re worried about me?”

It was definitely the second one. “Does it really make a difference?”

Blair nodded. “Definitely. If it’s because you want me to back off, I’m more than happy to do that. Not because it’s what I want, but because I never want to make you feel uncomfortable or as if I’m pressuring you into something.”

“You’ve never once made me uncomfortable. I can promise you that. I just don’t want you to ever feel like you have to do all of this. The last thing I want is for you to think I’m taking advantage of you. I like you even without any added benefits.”

Blair smirked and lifted an eyebrow. “What added benefits are we talking about exactly?”

Erin snorted out a laugh because that was the last thing she was expecting Blair to say, even though she really should’ve seen it coming. She playfully pushed Blair’s shoulder. “You know what I mean.”

“Oh, I knowexactlywhat you mean.” Blair wiggled her eyebrows, but then became serious once again. “But anyway, I wanted to get this for Nolan. It’s honestly kind of a gift for both of our birthdays, since it was a bit selfish on my end. When we were at the zoo, I noticed they had a two-hour up close and personal giraffe experience, so I’m going to take him to that. I didn’t get the actual tickets yet, because I wanted to figure out what day works. I hope you don’t mind that I was just going to have it be me and him. We’d obviously love to have you, but I figured this could be our special time since we don’t really get that now that I’m not his babysitter.”

There was so much to pick apart there that Erin didn’t know where to start. One thing in particular had really caught her attention, though. “Wait. You said a gift for both of your birthdays. Is your birthday coming up soon?” Erin couldn’t believe she didn’t know this, especially after everything they had been through and talked about with each other.

Blair nodded slowly, as if she was hesitant to admit that to Erin. “It’s actually two weeks from yesterday, on October 10th.”

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