“Now let’s finish brushing those teeth so we can say goodnight! Tomorrow is a new day and it will be a great day!”
Both girls seemed to give up Operation Daddy and focus back on the new school adventures they faced. After Rafe said his goodnights, he left Sloan alone with the girls and went to start some laundry. A while later, she found him in the kitchen heating up a home plate sized quesadilla.
“I think we should talk,” she said, before gnawing on the inside of her lip.
“Yeah.”
10
Sloan leaned against the counter and let out a deep breath. When she woke up that morning and looked back on the texts they’d shared the night before, she wasn’t entirely sure just how much of an ass she’d made of herself. Rafe seemed to be on the same wavelength. They’d only been apart a few hours, but they’d missed each other. That was cool. Made the butterflies in her stomach do a little dance.
She’d felt a little less silly when the girls had asked when Rafe was coming back a few dozen times throughout the day. They’d wanted him to come to the salon with them. It was Addison’s idea to order him some dinner to go.
“Rafe eats a lot. Even if he has dinner with his family, he’ll be hungry again when he gets back to our house,” she’d announced as they looked over their menus. They were clearly growing closer to him. Sloan should have expected they would want to know more about him, think about him as more of a permanent part of their lives, but she definitely wasn’t expecting them to ask her anything that would make her almost choke on her tongue.
Rafe, Mr. Calm’n’Cool, on the other hand, leaned against the counter beside her, his muscled arms crossed over his broad chest like he wasn’t the least bit shocked. “Do you want to hear my armchair child psychologist’s opinion?”
“Yeah. Actually, I do.”
“I’m pretty sure this has more to do with them liking me than them wanting us to be together.”
“Really?” She felt her eyebrow go up.
“Yeah. I didn’t meet Tess, but something tells me that if she was the type of person to walk out on them in the middle of the day, they might not have bonded with her that well.”
“Yeah, I guess. Tess was responsible-ish, but she wasn’t as warm as you are with them,” Sloan admitted. Rafe and Tess definitely had different approaches.
“I think they see us all together and think family unit,” he said. “I’m not downplaying it. It’s not nothing. They are thinking about the adults in their life, but it’s not something to panic about.”
“Well, look at you Sherlocking this whole situation.”
He shrugged. “When I’m right, I’m right.”
“Yeah, I think you may be onto something, but holy crap. I almost had a stroke.”
“Avery’s middle name should be ‘Keeping You on Your Fucking Toes’.”
Sloan laughed and dreaded having to talk to Avery about her own personal drama one day. She could already feel herself greying from the stress. “Well, at least we distracted them with the Truth of A Hundred and Thirty-Four steps.”
“About that,” he said. Sloan picked the wrong moment to look up at Rafe’s gorgeous face. The tip of his tongue slowly crept out and wet his full bottom lip.
“Yeah, about that.”
“I’ve been told that I need to make my intentions with you clear,” he said.
Sloan’s stomach twisted. If Xeni got a hold of his number… “By who?”
“Joe Whitcomb and his wife, Monica.”
“You talked to your parents about us?”
“They forced my hand a little. Monica tried to set me up with two different women at breakfast.”
“Uh—”
“I’m not seeing anyone else and I don’t want to, but you said there was something we had to do before we could even talk about this?”
“Yeah…” Sloan watched as Rafe turned and stepped into her personal space. She took an automatic step back just so she could see his face, and another as he stepped closer. He followed her, edging her further and further back until she was halfway down the hall to his bedroom.
