“I’ll think about it, but I’d really prefer they didn’t miss any school so early in the year.”
“Okay. Well, I’m coming down to meet their teacher. And I want to meet this dude, Rafe.”
“This dude?” Sloan did roll her eyes then.
“Sorry. Your new childcare contractor.”
“Anyway. This all sounds great. Come on down and meet everyone.”
“You always sound so annoyed and you know what would make this all easier.”
“Easier for you and only you. I’m not moving back.”
“I’m just saying. My sister said they still had openings at Hyde Country Day School.”
Well, have some more kids with someone else and send them to Hyde Country Fucking Day then, she wanted to say, but she bit her tongue. She hated fighting with Drew. It always started off being about the kids and slowly became about how Sloan was incompetent in his eyes, in every way. She’d learned to finally stick up for herself, but when things got that far, when she was pushed to reminding him that she was almost fifteen years his junior and still a better surgeon than him, that all of her accomplishments seemed moot, especially when she broke down in tears. Just thinking about how far this shitty conversation could go was ruining her lovely sunny morning. She threw back her covers and quickly walked out of her bedroom.
“I’m wary of any private school that has openings a few days before the school year is supposed to start,” she said, thinking about how shitty it was going to be to see him next week.
“It’s a great school.”
“I don’t doubt it.” She stopped near the bottom of the stairs where she was greeted by the smell of bacon. She could hear the girls giggling and that was enough to turn her mood back around. “Do you want to speak to our children?”
“Yeah, I have a few minutes. Put Avery on.”
“Fine. Hold on.” Sloan dropped her phone to her side, then stepped into the kitchen. The girls were sitting at the island watching something on the tablet. The waffle iron was still out, but the kitchen was otherwise near spotless. Rafe and those blasted sweatpants were surveying the contents of the plasticware drawer. He was also wearing a muscle tee that showed off his glorious tattooed arms. He looked up at the sound of her voice.
“Love bugs, your daddy is on the phone for you.” Sloan strategically handed Avery the phone, then walked around the far side of the island just to stop herself from walking straight to Rafe and asking him for a good morning kiss. Still, she felt his eyes on her as she grabbed herself a glass of water.
“You want waffles, Dr. Copeland? I can make you waffles. Cinnamon and nutmeg. It’s Monica’s recipe.”
“I’d love some waffles.” She chugged half the glass, then turned away from the fridge, bracing herself for who knows what.
“Morning,” he said when she finally made real eye contact with him. She knew there was no medical chance for her to literally combust, but looking at him made her feel like anything was possible.
8
After Avery casually tried to rejoin their post-bedtime, adults only, poolside party twice, Sloan had had enough. She couldn’t bring herself to spank her girls, even though her own father had a special belt reserved for such occasions. Sloan instead found that a certain tone of voice deep inside her that conveyed she meant business was pretty effective when it was coupled with actual follow through. This time, the threat of no tablet time for three days was enough to get Avery to stay in her bed.
Sloan understood. They loved Xeni and the minute she showed up with her friends, Meegan, Sarah and Shae, all of whom were great with kids, they felt like they had a bunch of new friends to play with, which was all fun and games until it was time for bed. Sloan wanted to be patient, but she’d also been on edge for hours, ever since she’d gotten off the phone with Drew and she needed to unwind.
Okay, so Drew wasn’t the only reason she was on edge. Sloan’s work required intense focus. Her patients’ lives literally depended on it. It was easy to put Rafe out of her mind for a good portion of the day, but a few hours of carefully avoiding him while craving his touch to a ridiculous degree was making her a little stir crazy. She almost let out a sigh of relief when he went to shower and came back wearing jeans that made her think about his dick a little less.
Rafe had offered to stick around for the bedtime struggle so Sloan could get back to her guests sooner, but Sloan wanted to honor his time off. When she insisted that he flee the scene if he knew what was good for him, he made a call and an hour later, Monica swung by to pick him up. Sloan felt a twinge of something weird when she thought about him spending the rest of the weekend with his family. Whatever the twinge was hiding under its surface, Sloan decided to bury it nice and deep, and keep going on with her weekend.
She made a pit stop at the fridge to grab two more bottles of wine, then made her way back to the party. As she walked through the house, a fresh wave of anxiety hit her. She was new to this friend group and she really wanted to get to know them all better. Meegan and Shae had met though Shae’s cousin and her husband. Sarah and Meegan both worked at Whippoorwill with Xeni. Sloan was secretly grateful she’d met Xeni one fateful afternoon in a long Trader Joe’s line months before the girls had been accepted to Whippoorwill. There was no way they’d be spending time with a parent of incoming students otherwise.
Shae was an outlier too, but Sloan was sure that the fact that she owned Sweet Creams, one of the best bakeries in L.A., was the glue that kept their crew together. Gourmet cupcakes made everything better. They had been very welcoming to Sloan since Xeni introduced them all, but Sloan was also the only one with kids so she missed out on a lot of their lady hangs. She’d say navigating all of this took her back to high school, but she had no friends then because no teenager wants to hang out with an eight-year-old with a crazy high IQ. Sloan’s social development had been so screwed up that even at almost thirty she was never sure if she was doing it right.
She strapped on a smile as she stepped out of the door, then stopped dead in her tracks when she took in the scene on the other side of the pool. Meegan and Shae had been in the deep end when she’d carted Avery back upstairs. Now the four of them were sitting on the cushioned cabana benches, gathered around Meegan. She was clearly crying. Sloan rushed around to the other side of the pool.
“Is everything okay?”
“I accidentally poked a nerve,” Shae said, cringing.
“No, she didn’t.” Meegan wiped her face with a sniffle. “She just asked me about my kinda ex, Shep. Ugh, he wasn’t even my ex. I don’t know what the fuck he was. He was something though. I— I’ll just tell you.”
“We don’t have to talk about it if it’s making you upset,” Sloan said.
