Page 135 of Callahan

“You want to stay at my place tonight?”

“No, but you probably should give me a ride home.”

Adam spoke up. “Why don’t you stay here tonight, that way I can feed Conor.”

When I didn’t agree right away, he added, “I am the baby whisperer, after all.”

Brian said, “His playpen’s still at my house. I can bring it over.”

Alan looked at me with his shoulders raised. “Sounds like they’ve got it all figured out. I’d take advantage of it, if I were you.”

The wine had kind of put me in the mood to be taken advantage of, but that was a different story.

“I mean, okay, if you have room?”

Adam smiled. “Plenty of room.” He reached for my hand. “Come on, I’ll show you where you can sleep. It’s far away from Alan’s room so you don’t have to listen to him snore.”

His head shot up at the sound of his name.

“Hey! I went to a sleep study and had that corrected, thank you very much.”

“Good, ’cuz you sounded like a chainsaw.”

With a giggle, I replied, “I don’t know. I’ve been told I snore when I’ve been drinking.”

“You’ll be at the end of the hall. You won’t bother anyone even if you do.”

I wasn’t convinced, but I was too tipsy to care.

“Okaaaay.”

****

Adam

“Are you sure you’ll remember to feed him? He’s going to wake up in like,” Lainey looked at her wrist and realized she wasn’t wearing a watch, so she winged it. “Twenty minutes.”

I guided her down the hall with my hand at the small of her back.

“I promise, princess. I will feed him when he wakes up in twenty minutes, and again at three, and again at six. You don’t have to worry. I’ll make sure you’re up in time to open the bakery. Go to sleep, baby.”

She stopped abruptly in the hall with her bottom lip jutted out in a pout.

“You don’t get to call me that anymore, remember?”

“You’re right,” I agreed as I urged her to move again. “I forgot.”

Stumbling a little, she put her hand on the wall to steady herself and asked, “How could you forget? I’ll never forget. I loved our time together.”

“I loved it, too.”

Tears filled her eyes when we reached the guest room at the end of the hall. The one across from the owner’s suite.

“Then why don’t you want me?”

“Baby girl, it’s not that I don’t want you. I fuckingachefor you, but we agreed we can’t do that to Shawn.”

“I didn’t agree to anything,” she proclaimed stubbornly as she walked into the room and flopped spread-eagle onto the bed.

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