“It’s a good thing I didn’t decide to use that key you keep under that fake rock when you took too long to answer the door. Then you would’ve really been mad at me, huh?”
She gasped. “How do you know about that key?”
He smirked. “Spotted it when I was throwing out trash a month ago. Kicked the rock by accident. Noticed the key under it. Which, by the way, that’s a terrible place to keep a spare, baby. Terrible.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She rolled her eyes playfully. “After losing my keys years ago at a Mommy and Me meetup in the Botanical Gardens, I’ve been keeping them there. It works for me, so hush.”
“Mmm-hmm.” He tapped her chin, tilted her head back, and kissed her again.
“What I wouldn’t give to take you upstairs and work off all these pancakes and syrup, though.”
She giggled, then moaned softly, arms tightening around his waist.
He ran his thumb along her lips. She opened her eyes, and the look in them did things to him he didn’t need happening right now—especially since he couldn’t act on them.
“I’ll text next time,” he promised, caressing her cheek.
He left a kiss on her forehead, opened the door, and stepped out onto the stoop.
At his truck, he leaned forward, behind the steering wheel, to peer through the brownstone window. He hoped to catch a glimpse of her, or the kids. But he couldn’t see anything.
Xander had been finding it hard to fight the pull of wanting them under the same roof one day. It would be crazy to ask Rylee and the kids to move into his one-bedroom, but with Rylee drawing invisible lines he tried hard not to cross, it was hard for him to envision her home as his home too. Lennox’s presence lived in those walls, and Xander respected that, even when it made him feel like a permanent guest in a life he wanted to be part of.
But a conversation that the firefighters at his firehouse were having over lunch weeks prior had been playing on repeat in his mind.
“Aye, yo, have y’all heard that Greene Gardens is offering priority housing to first responders?”
Xander peeked up from his mac and cheese to focus on his fellow firefighter, Colt.
“You get price cuts, low-interest loans, the works,” Colt said through his stuffed mouth. “Brooks from Ladder 181 just bought a property out there.”
“Word?” Xander asked. “How he like it?”
“Oh, he loves it over there,” Colt replied, shoveling more food into his mouth. “His house is huge. The neighborhood good too.”
“Hmph,” Xander replied, returning to eating. “That’s dope. Maybe I’ll look into it someday.”
But the thought hooked in deep. A place big enough for the kids. A neighborhood that felt safe. A chance to build something of his own for the first time in his life.
It was just a thought.
A thought that wouldn’t leave him. Especially not on that day as he sat in his truck, prepared to start it up and drive off… even when he really didn’t want to. There wasn’t a place he wanted to be more on that cold Saturday morning than in there, with them.
And he thought he was doing everything right to earn that place—being present, being gentle.
So why did it always feel like he was crossing a line trying to make a home with Rylee and her kids?
four
RYLEE
“Am I the asshole?”Rylee asked, lowering her mimosa to the table with a soft clink. “Because really hear me out on this.”
Rylee’s friend Parker pursed her lips while her other friend Nadia sipped her drink and focused in on Rylee.
“So,boom,” Rylee started, turning to face her friends in her chair. “I know I should be happy, right? This is what I wanted and what I thought I couldn’t have but got anyway, right?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Parker hummed with a nod.
