Page 23 of Jalen & Colby

He grins sheepishly. “Uh, tomorrow evening. We’d land in London early on the twenty-third.”

“What’s the best way to call in sick?” I ask Colby.

He shakes his head. “Email, definitely email.”

I grab his phone from off the coffee table and thrust it into his hands. “Do it now before you can chicken out. Don’t think. Just do.”

“Jay, are you sure?—?”

“Absolutely,” I say with as much conviction as I can muster. “We are going to do something crazy because otherwise we’ll regret it for the rest of our lives.”

I look back at Andreas. When he holds out his hand to me, I take it with a squeeze.

Yes, this is CRAZY. But what he said about his old friends makes perfect sense to me. Colby and I have said all along that he seems lonely. He’s been missing out on all these adventures he could have been having for so long. Why wait until next year to go home for Christmas or invite us to travel with him? Why not start living againright now?

I’m not letting Colby miss this chance.

If I’m honest, I’m not sure how I fit into all of this. I’m so determined now that Andreas is Colby’s dream Daddy, and I’m going to get them together if it kills me. Selfishly, I don’t want to miss out on this trip, either. But if push comes to shove, I’ll always put Colby’s needs before mine.

Even if that means breaking my own heart in the process.

“So…we’re really doing this?” Colby asks tentatively, his phone held aloft in his hand.

I look at Andreas and nod, watching his face split into an ecstatic grin.

“We’re doing this,” he says firmly.

“WOOHOO!”I scream and punch the air.“London, baby, yeah!”

I have no idea what this trip is going to bring, but I’m determined to go along for the ride.

I just hope I don’t get left behind, that’s all.

CHAPTER10

Andreas

Wow.I can’t believe we’re actually doing this.

My apartment is quiet as I go to get a drink of water. I’ve been tossing and turning for an hour, so I hope this might help me finally drift off. It’s after midnight, and the boys are asleep in my spare room once again, except this time they each have a suitcase standing in my front hallway, and tomorrow we’ll all be heading off to Sydney International Airport together.

I’m still pretty convinced that I’m crazy. That any moment now they’re going to turn around and call me out on how bloody weird this is. But right now…everyone seems to be on board.

I puff out my cheeks before taking a sip of cold water, my head buzzing as I let my eyes roam around my darkened home. I meant everything I said to the boys this evening. It just took a while for me to realize why it had felt so easy and natural to fall into friendship with them.

They’re the friends I never had.

But things are different now. Mainly because I’m in my late thirties, and that makes me a hell of a lot older and wiser than I was when I first came into this windfall. Like I said, I do have a lot of people I’m friendly with who are closer to my age. I’d like to consider them friends to a certain extent. But not close companions or the kinds of people I want to open my heart up to.

Jalen and Colby still have that youthful exuberance that I’ve missed for so long. And yeah, it fits in really well with the nurturing Daddy tendencies I now acknowledge I have.

All in all, I truly believe us coming together like we did was a case of being in just the right place at just the right time.

Why fight that? Why um and ah and adhere to some imaginary timescale that society says we have to stick to? After that talk on the beach, I suddenly and quite forcefully realized that I didn’t actually want to delay another year before going back to see my family. But I also didn’t want to leave my two new gorgeous friends behind on their own, either.

I’m so happy they agreed. I’m so pleased we were able to get Colby out of work. Jalen is off until the new year, like me, as well, so we’re free.

Free to fly halfway around the world and see what’ll happen.

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