“I’m confused,” Kaiya said.
Turned out she sold the hell out of skin care products. Who knew?
And she needed a whole lot of Rachel’s help. During working hours.
Kaiya had no problems with boundaries and set her own firm office hours. It made for an excellent working relationship.
She also paid on time and provided all the free lavender skin cream Rachel could ever need.
This get-together was taking place in Rachel’s backyard. All the kids were bouncing on the trampoline, April poured margaritas, and Sadie served cookies she’d brought along from Heather’s Cookie Co.—the good kind with extra icing she got because she was friendly with the owner.
“What are you confused about?” April asked, topping off Kaiya’s glass.
“So Evelyn is just okay with everything because she thinks she accidentally gave you guys food poisoning?” Kaiya confirmed. “That seems unlike her, from what you’ve said.”
She was right, it did seem unlike her. But it wasn’t about food poisoning. It was about Evelyn realizing things might just be okay anyway, even if she didn’t get her way.
“That’s her excuse,” Rachel said with a sly smile. “But I think she came around because she realized her sons aren’t going to beat the crap out of each other over the situation between Travis and me.”
“How do you feel about it all?” Sadie asked.
“I have Travis. So things are pretty great.” Rachel settled back against her chair, gripping the cocktail with two hands. On the scale of great, things were magnificent. He’d found her toothbrush three times just that morning before she kicked him out before the boys woke up.
He ate dinner with them every night in the week they’d been back—except two nights he had corporate dinners. On those nights, he stopped by afterward to say goodnight and give Rachel what he referred to as “a proper goodnight.”
To be clear, there wasn’t much proper about the way he said goodnight. Hence the, ahem, magnificent.
Even the thought made her cheeks heat and her heart flutter like it always had when a relationship was brand-new. The thing was, this relationship still had the flutter, but it was definitely not new.
In truth, they’d been working toward it for years. She just hadn’t realized. For the record, the bedroom activities weren’t the only thing she adored about Travis. They were a definite perk, for sure, but more than that, he fit seamlessly into her life.
Like he was always meant to be there. Like the splintered pieces of the life she’d planned all pointed straight to this place. To him, and to her boys, and to her family.
“Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I for one am really ticked off that you didn’t even try the produce thing,” Molly said with a huff.
“What’s the produce thing?” Kaiya asked.
“Don’t ask.” April held up her hand. “Trust me, it is not something any of us should entertain.”
“Okay, what about this?” Molly shifted and faced April. “Car seat fittings.”
“What?” April asked.
Rachel pressed her tongue against her teeth so she wouldn’t ask questions. Asking questions when Molly had ideas was not a good choice.
“We all love firefighters, right?” Molly asked. “I mean, did you see the calendar they did this year to raise money?” She fanned herself. “Do you know where a girl would go to meet a firefighter?”
“I have no idea,” Kaiya said. “Where do you go?”
Total mistake with all the questions.
“To the firehouse. But you can’t just walk on in there unless something is on fire. Unless”—Molly held up her finger like she’d just had a brilliant idea—“there is a car seat fitting.”
“You know what?” Kaiya said. “I went to one of those once and the guy who installed the seat was really cute and sweet. He even asked about special hand soap to get the gunk off his hands after he went on a call.”
“What else did he ask about?” Molly zeroed in on Kaiya. “Did he ask for your number?”
“Uh.” Kaiya looked from Rachel to April to Sadie. “Just so he could buy soap. He liked the idea of all-natural hand soap.”
