“Any more issues?” he asks as though he is expecting a list of them.
“Not a one.” My smile is broad because I made it without any incident. “We did homework, which—super lame. You need to have a talk with the school because half of it was redundant, and Olivia is incredibly smart and needs to be challenged. After that, she took a shower. Before you ask, yes, I checked in on her at the six-minute mark just like the binder says.” He rolls his eyes, and I continue on. “Dinner was great, she ate well, and then I painted her nails because she told me mine were pretty.”
“Was that in the binder?” he asks.
“Nope, but I got approval from Sara after she had her fifteen-minute video call with Olivia and then let me know all the rules—and I meanall.”
Seriously that woman is wound so tight. I thought my mother was a taskmaster, but Sara is next level.
Asher laughs. “Good, you can deal with Sara from now on. Any time she calls, tell her I’m at work.”
“I’m sure she has a tracking device on you.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it. She isn’t normally this intense. We do the co-parenting thing really well. I think it helps we never really dated and there were no feelings.”
“I thought you guys dated,” I say, not really sure why.
“Not really. We had an arrangement, we ended it when it wasn’t working, and then we found out she was pregnant. Now she’s dating that Finnegan guy on the Ford dealership commercial.”
I skip past the hooking up part and go to the interesting tidbit at the end. “Oh! I saw that one today! He is cute. Go, Sara.”
Asher starts to unbutton his uniform top and lets out a chuckle. “I’m a much better catch, but I guess Finnegan from Ford isn’t a bad second choice. But”—he claps his hands together—“enough about that. I’m going to shower and then eat before I have to get up in six hours.”
He saunters off, going upstairs toward Olivia’s room first. She’s fast asleep, which seems super early to me, but Sara explained her therapy days are really hard on her and it’s best to get her to bed by seven.
I lean against the doorframe, thinking about what a great kid she is. Then my mind reels a bit about Asher and Sara. I didn’t know much about their arrangement, but I thought they were together. Come to think of it, I don’t know that Asher has ever been linked to anyone in Sugarloaf. Weird that.
He comes back down the stairs with a soft grin.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“She’s alive and resting peacefully. Her device wasn’t on, but I forgot to mention that.”
“Was that the box beside her bed?”
“Yes, if she needs anything, she pushes the button, and there’s a box in my room that alerts me. There’s a second one that I put in your room as well.”
“All right. Thank you.”
He opens his shirt the rest of the way, and I really wish I hadn’t looked because—sweet Lord, his body is freaking perfect.
“See you in the morning,” he says as he walks toward the back hallway.
Needing to collect my wits, I go back to cleaning the kitchen, grab my large duffle bag, and make my way to where I think is my room.
The house is not big, and the floor plan is kind of in the shape of a u. You enter in the middle of the home where there is the living room, the dining area is off to the right, and the kitchen is behind it. The right hallway has a bathroom and two other doors, the left is where Asher went. It’s definitely an addition of some kind, but I haven’t exactly asked, and now I’m not sure.
I head to the right first, but the first door leads to a laundry area and the second opens to a room full of boxes, so that’s not it.
No way is it upstairs since that entire floor is Olivia’s.
So, I go to the left hallway.
There are three doors, and only one is closed. The first is a bathroom, and the other open one is definitely where he expects me to stay. There is a queen-size bed between two windows that look out to the backyard, rolling hills, and the mountain on the horizon. It’s pretty much the same view most of Sugarloaf has.
I close the door and quickly change into my shorts and camisole crop top before I start to unpack. With my earbuds in, I crank up the angry 90s girl music—because, really, there’s nothing like Amy Winehouse blaring about going back to black when you’re hating all of the male gender—and put my clothes in the drawers.
four