Page 36 of Breaking News

But Jill, slowly running her hands over her breasts, sighed and said, “I’m not going to fit into your daughter’s pajamas, Graham.”

Oh. “Right,” I said, swallowing. “That’s dumb. I’m dumb. I don’t know why I said that.”

“Don’t you have a shirt I can wear?” she asked, handing me the towel.

“Pants?” I blurted.

Jill furrowed her brows. “I saidshirt.”

“But don’t you also need… pants?”

“How drunkareyou?” The corners of her mouth lifted in a subtle smile. “I’m just looking for a long, oversized t-shirt. You got one of those?”

Did I? Suddenly, I couldn’t recall any specific item of clothing I owned. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I could find my way to my own bedroom.

“I’ll wait,” Jill said, running her fingers through her damp hair.

Upstairs, I fumbled through my dresser drawers until I found the oversized tie-dye Panama City Beach t-shirt my kids brought back from a vacation with Andrea and Pete two years ago. It was two sizes too big, which I tried not to take as an insult at the time, and I’d only worn it once to sleep in.

Bingo.

Jill was looking at the pictures of Olivia and Caleb on the wall when I returned. I held up the shirt. “Will this work?”

“Perfect.”

I got myself a glass of water in the kitchen while she changed in the bathroom, rubbing my eyes like this whole night might be some alcohol-fueled hallucination. And then she emerged wearing my t-shirt, walking over to one of the stools at my kitchen island like this was completely normal. The shirt was almost as long as the dress she’d just been wearing, maybe an inch or two shorter, but the mere fact that Jillian Taylor was standing in my kitchen without pants was almost too much for me to handle.

I took a sip of water, coughing before I asked, “Is that comfortable?”

She slid into the stool across from me and put her dress on the seat beside her, and then she draped one hand over the other on the counter. “It’s great. Thank you.”

I poured her a glass of water, handing it to her without asking if she wanted it. I was going to insist she drink it, anyway,knowing it’s what she needed. Thankfully, she didn’t give me any trouble, gulping down half the glass in just a few seconds.

“Do you want something to eat?”

“Um…” She thought this over, and then her stomach growled so loud we both laughed. “That might be a good idea.”

I rummaged through the cabinets, rattling off some of the kids’ sugar-loaded snack items. “Pop-tarts, chocolate chip cookies, Nutty Buddies—oh look at that, an unopened box of dried fruit strips.” I looked over at Jill. “At least I tried.”

She smiled, tilting her head to get a better look at something in the cabinet. “Are those Cocoa Pebbles? I haven’t had them in ages.”

A minute later, I was pouring both of us a bowl of cereal. I took the empty stool beside her, and the two of us sat there and ate like this was completely normal for us. It was one in the morning, but I was more wired and alert than I had been all day.

I told her why I owned the giant t-shirt—making her laugh when I said they’d redeemed themselves by also bringing back a shark bottle opener for me. “That’s better,” she said, stirring her cereal. “Do you and their mom get along, or is it a we-only-text-about-the-kids situation?”

“Andrea and I get along great. There’s no animosity there. Although, I was a little miffed at her this week for keeping me in the dark about some things. I guess Olivia and her boyfriend have been… getting too close.”

“Oh no.” Jill smiled, swallowing a bite of her chocolatey cereal. “You weren’t ready for that, were you?”

“Fuck. In my mind, she’s still this pigtailed little girl driving around in her Barbie Jeep. But I guess they’ve gotta grow up sometime.”

“Hold on,” Jill said, touching my elbow. “She had a Barbie Jeep? Lucky kid.”

“Her mom’s house couldn’t haveallthe cool toys,” I explained. “Caleb had a ride-on Lightning McQueen. We turned the driveway into a car wash. Guess who got to be their dutiful car wash operator?”

Jill stared at me with a smile, holding her spoon between her teeth. I took another bite of my cereal, wondering what I’d said to make her grin like that. “That’s so cute.”

I laughed and chewed a bite of my cereal. “Now the only way I can make them happy is to just… stay out of their way. Things will never be the same. Last weekend, they didn’t even want to go hiking with me. That used to be our thing.”

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