And that was whacked.
“What did you do before you sold skin cream?” Sadie asked.
“I was head of pharmaceutical sales for a large medical supply company.” Kaiya licked at the margarita salt along the rim of her cup. “My ex always said I was a drug dealer. But that’s not really accurate, because I didn’t have access to the medications myself. I think he just thought it was funny. He was an ass,though, so his sense of humor was iffy.”
The things you learned about a girl over margaritas and sugar cookies.
“Hello,ladies.” Travis strode out the door, stopping to kiss Rachel on her temple. “Can I crash your party?”
“You can always crash my parties.” Rachel glanced up at him.
“Isn’t that good to know?” He nodded to the margaritas. “Are those for anyone?”
“No,” Molly said. “They’re only for people we like. Therefore, you are welcome to one.”
“Rach.” Gavin stepped out onto the patio. “Thought I’d pick up the boys a little early so this lug could take you to dinner. I didn’t realize they had friends over.”
“For example,” Molly said to Travis. “They aren’t for your brother.”
Travis shook his head. “He’ll grow on you,Ms. Molly.”
“Not likely.” She shook her head, brown curls bouncing against her shoulders.
“Mom,” Brady screeched. “Kellan spilled slime all over the trampoline.”
“It’s in my hair,” Ollie squealed. He didn’t sound too torn up about that fact.
Molly rolled her eyes and stood to go investigate. “They’ve been alone for like only sixty seconds.”
Gavin followed her, as did April and Kaiya.
Sadie said her goodbyes and headed toward the front door.
“You two have a good night,” she hollered behind as she pulled the door closed.
Rachel took in Travis. He was grinning a goofy smile. “Where’d they get slime?”
“They kept it from their birthday party.” She shrugged. The stuff was water-based. A good dose of the hose, and the slime would come right off.
Only a month ago, she would’ve lost her utter shit over the slime situation. But it didn’t seem to matter as much these days. Not with the lightness she felt all the time.
The happy.
Oh, for sure, things were still a bit of a mess,but she was making do.
She’d dipped into her emergency fund to make the mortgage payment, but James was looking to increase her hours—during regular business hours, of course—and things seemed promising with Kaiya. Even Sadie and April had asked if she could do some side jobs for them.
Most of all, though, she’d been getting an appropriate amount of sleep at night. Therefore,the weight of her world didn’t feel quite so heavy.
She stared at Travis. He wasn’t looking at her,though—he was watching the chaos happening at the trampoline.
There was literally slime everywhere.
Where the hell had they gotten so much of it?
“I love you, Rach,” he said, out of the blue, but like he’d been trying to figure out how to say that for forever.
Rachel’s heart seemed to stop beating for a moment, encapsulated in the feeling that she’d been alone, and now she wasn’t. Everything seemed to be all right in her extremely imperfect world.
