Page 15 of Falling Together

Nolan giggled as if she had just told him a poop joke. “Computers don’t get lonely.”

Erin raised her eyebrows at him. “How do you know?”

Instead of answering, Nolan simply shrugged and opened the front door.Thank god this didn’t turn into a game of twenty questions.

Just as she’d hoped, five minutes into their car ride, Nolan passed out. Erin drove the rest of the way to the grocery store since she knew that once he woke up, he would expect his cupcakes. Instead of going inside, she opened her computer and set it on the center console. Erin connected it to the hotspot on her phone and opened up her email. She smiled at Nolan, who now looked like a complete angel, and prepared herself to respond to the emails that had been sitting stagnant all day.

As soon as she hit reply on the first email, a teenager pulled into the parking spot beside hers, with music playing so loud she could hear every word. The music continued to play as he opened his door, which caused the sounds to blast into her car.

She closed her eyes.Please don’t wake u-

“Mommy!” Nolan wailed from the backseat.

Erin squeezed her eyes shut as all of the ways she wished she couldmurderthat teenager ran through her mind.Shoving the speakers right up his asshole might be nice.

“Mommy!” Nolan screamed once again. “Cupcakes. I want cupcakes.”

He continued to yell about cupcakes as Erin shut off the car and got out. When she noticed the teenage boy glaring at Nolan as ifhewas the one to blame, it took everything inside of Erin not to stick her middle finger up at him.

Instead, she plastered a smile onto her face and ignored the teenager as she opened Nolan’s car door. “Do you want cupcakes?” she joked. “I don’t think you do.”

“Cupcakes!” Nolan yelled even louder now, which caused the teenager to get back into his car and slam the door shut.

Sweet victory.“We could get broccoli instead. What d’ya think? Should we do that?”

Dramatic as always, Nolan made a sound like he was gagging just from the mention of a vegetable. “Broccoli is disgusting. I don’t eat vegetables.”

He’s not lying about that.“I guess we’ll just have to get cupcakes then, huh?”

“Yay!” Nolan did a little dance in his car seat that was so cute, it almost made Erin forget what a terror he had been the entire day.Almost.

Erin got him out of his car seat and grabbed his hand, which resulted in her getting pulled across the parking lot as he attempted to get to the cupcakes as quickly as possible. After a few minutes, they were back in the car and Nolan was happily eating one of his cupcakes, something that Erin normally wouldn’t allow in the car, but she was way too tired to fight him.

Once the cupcake was gone, Nolan passed out again. Erin considered pulling into the closest parking lot to make another attempt at getting work done, but she knew if he woke up, she would get irrationally angry, and it really wasn’t his fault. It was her fault for somehow convincing herself she could actually get work done with him around.

Erin had to take a few deep breaths to keep from breaking into tears. Normally, she was okay at handling the whole single parenting thing. It wasn’t easy, but she could do it. Today was one of those days that felt like it could destroy her. She needed help. As much as she hated to admit it, she couldn’t do this on her own, especially if she ever wanted to get any work done.

She was barely thinking when she picked up her phone and hit Blair’s name. If she had truly thought it through, she wouldn’t have attempted to make a call while Nolan was sleeping. She also would’ve overthought whether she shouldcallBlair instead of texting her. Erin hated talking on the phone, and she could only assume that Blair hated it even more than her.

She was about to hang up and act like it was an accident when Blair picked up. “Hello?” she asked, sounding just as confused about the call as Erin felt.

Erin cleared her throat a few times while she thought about what to say. “Hey. I’m… um… really sorry to call you on your day off, but, well, I actually had a question to ask you about that. Would you have any interest in working Fridays? Not today, of course, but for the rest of the summer. Or, at least, some Fridays. It doesn’t have to be all of them if you don’t want it to be, or it doesn’t have to be any at all. I’m sure you have things you’d much rather do. Even if you could give me a few hours every now and then, I’d be so appreciative. I’ll pay you the same as I do for the other days, no matter how long you work.” Erin knew she was rambling, but she couldn’t help herself. It’s what she did when she was overwhelmed, and right now, she was extremely overwhelmed. “You can say no, though. Seriously, I’ll figure it out. I don’t want you to think that you need—”

“I’ll do it,” Blair said before Erin could even finish.

“You will?”

“Yeah. It’s not like I have anything else to do. If it’ll help make things easier on you, I’d be happy to do it.”

Erin could hear another voice in the background but couldn’t make out what they were saying. Clearly, whatever it was, Blair didn’t want to hear it, because she told the person to “Shut the fuck up.” She laughed as she said the words though, so Erin could tell it was obviously someone she was close to.

“Sorry about that. My friend, Marisol, thinks she’s funny. Hopefully I’m not on speaker.”

“Bluetooth, but don’t worry. Nolan is currently asleep.” Erin blew out a long breath. “Thank God.”

“Are you okay?” Blair asked, her tone making it seem like she actually cared about the answer. “Do you want me to come over now for a little bit?”

Erin shook her head. “I can’t make you do that.”

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