Page 17 of One Bride for Three Single Dads

“Jesus, man, just get in the truck,” I sigh.

All the way home, I try to figure out how to get him to back off the idea. Ireland, yes. But we’ve gone without a girlfriend for so long, what’s a little bit more?

Isn’t the most important thing to make sure that the kids are okay? To make sure that we don’t disrupt anything with Jolene? To knock that job out of the park so we get more jobs like that?

I try working up a speech in my head, but something tells me it’s not going to go anywhere. Harrison just sits in the passenger seat, his head halfway out the window like a golden retriever, his hair blowing in the wind behind him. Seriously. If he had a tail, he would be wagging it.

I see Ambrose’s truck in the driveway and pull in behind it, then follow Harrison into the house, and back toward the kitchen. It is so quiet, it must be naptime. Out of habit, I drop into silence. Cole is really good about taking his naps, and if we wake him up too early, then he goes to sleep too late.

It’s funny how that works out.

But something istooquiet. Harrison calls out my name. I follow the sound.

“You don’t have to shout,” I mutter.

Still, something is…

Harrison and I both turn at the same time and look into the game room. Lookacrossthe game room.

There in the hallway, I can see Ambrose and Jolene, staring back at us.

Her thighs are wrapped around his hips.

He’s got her arms held over her head.

It’s happening.

“Well, all right,” I hear myself say, as I pull my shirt off over my head.

It’s like second nature. I don’t even think about it. If Ambrose is getting in there, I am getting in there too. This ishappening.

“This took way too long,” Harrison says, right behind me as we start to cross the game room.

“Let’s do this!” I say.

“No, wait,” says a voice.

It is my voice.

I said that.

Ambrose, Jolene, and Harrison all stare at me, absolutely outraged.

“Okay, let’s just think about this,” I say quickly.

Jolene climbs down from Ambrose’s hips. The bulge in his pants is about the size of a ground squirrel. Oh man, is he gonna be angry at me.

“We all know this is a bad idea, right?” I start quickly. “Didn’t we talk about this? Didn’t we decide?”

“What are you talking about?” Jolene interrupts angrily. “You talked about this?”

“No, no!” I explain urgently. “It’s more accurate to say we talked aboutnotdoing this… Jolene… Right? You know what I mean?”

She tosses her blonde hair over her shoulder and puts her hands on her hips.

“No, I don’t know what you mean!” she spits back at me.

“We just have so much respect for you,” Ambrose mumbles stupidly as he backs away.

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