“It means I’m guarded and take time to let someone in, but you’ve got an open door with me. What you do with that is up to you. I just ask that Archer is always your first consideration.”
“He is, but his mother deserves to be there too.”
26
FIT BETTER
Two weeks later, her nerves were frayed and her son was only a tiny cause of them.
“Archer,” she said, her breath blowing out, her eyes wide enough that he halted his dancing in place and listened to her. “Give me thirty minutes of peace, please. I need to finish these.”
“But I want one now,” her son complained, hopping in front of her with his hands in prayer, the goofy grin on his face that she normally fell for. “Why do I have to wait?”
He was eying the cookies on the rack cooling. Double chocolate chip. Her lemon bars were done and in the fridge for her to cut easier.
“Because they aren’t for you. You should always bring something when you visit someone’s house.”
Archer frowned. “I never bring things to my friends’ houses. How come?”
She shouldn’t have started this conversation. Or made that statement. “I meant as an adult.”
“Well, I’m not an adult, so I don’t count. That means if you’re baking cookies in front of me I should get one because we both know I’ll get on your nerves more.”
Farrah narrowed her eyes at his antics. Any other time she’d find it funny. She’d correct him on that assumption but still give him an A for effort.
It’d be much easier to hand over the damn cookie, but then he’d know he could do this again. When she had less patience than she did now.
“Go,” she said. “Out of here. If you don’t stop it and give me space then you don’t even get one at Jayce’s parents’.”
“Hey,” he complained. “That’s child abuse. So is withholding food from your only child.”
Damn, he was good. Got that quick wit from her.
She wanted to laugh.She really did.
Instead, she pointed her finger. “Leave now or you’ll never get another one of my cookies again. I’ll bake them weekly only to eat them right in front of you loudly munching and watching you drool.”
He burst out into giggles. “That’s a good one, Mom. I’m going to use that.”
She rolled her eyes as he dashed out of the room, his footsteps loudly slamming on the stairs to his loft.
Her shoulders drooped for a brief second, then the timer went off and she pulled out the pan and shoved the last one in there.
She hated rushing and shouldn’t have waited until the last second to make the desserts.
But if she’d made them last night, it would have been after Jayce left and by then she wanted to go to bed.
The past few weeks they hadn’t seen as much of each other as Archer would have liked, but Jayce was working and his day ended later than hers.
But they spent Friday night and Saturdays doing things as a “family.” Even Sunday last week also.
It wasn’t the dating she’d thought she’d have with a man, but it was the one that fit better than she ever expected.
Today, it was a cookout at his parents’ house with everyone invited.
She hadn’t seen Jocelyn since they had graduated from high school, even though she knew Jocelyn was a patient at the practice she’d been at for a few years.
And Chance, she’d run into him at his pub a few months ago. She remembered him, but he didn’t know who she was. Not that she expected he would. They hadn’t run in the same circles. He was more known for his reputation as a rebel than anything else.
