“Not a problem.” A birthday surprise was an excellent distraction. A birthday surprise was something for the boys to look forward to. A birthday surprise was the perfect redirection for their disappointment.
This wasn’t the first time she’d helped Dakota and Gavin co-parent virtually. It wouldn’t be the last, she was certain of that. Gavin was not a hands-on kind of father. Then again, he hadn’t really signed up to be a dad, so she did her best not to make it miserable for him.
“Bye, Rach.” Gavin’s voice sounded like an echo, since Dakota still had the phone.
“Bye,” Rachel said, thumbing the off button.
Rachel liked Dakota. She liked Gavin, too. It wasn’t his fault they’d based their marriage on one night of mediocre passion that led to their boys.
It wasn’t hers, either. It just…was.
Molly was still making gagging faces in between cookie bites. She didn’t understand this part of things.
Gavin and Rachel had tried. Tried-ish.
But, despite his mother’s proclivity to shoving them together, guilting them together, and offering to pay Rachel
to ensure they stayed together, their marriage was as dull as their kitchen knives.
Let’s just say, if their marriage were an entrée, it had no seasoning at all.
No one really understood what had happened on that one night eight years ago that had changed their lives. The night she hand-selected Gavin from a group of guys for her first ever supposed-to-be one-night stand.
The evening had resulted in one of them climaxing. (Spoiler alert, it wasn’t Rachel.) He’d called her a few times after, but she hadn’t returned his calls because that would’ve totally ruined the point of having a one-night-only curtain call.
Then—and oh boy, was it a big then—were the words, “Congrats, it’s twins.”
That part did not suck, because Rachel loved the hell out of her boys.
Besides the children, she and Gavin had shared a marriage that lasted a few months before they both came to their senses and recognized they made much better co-parenting friends and partners than co-parenting spouses who slept across the hall, because he snored like a freaking freight train on fire and she, so he told her, hogged all the blankets.
They were excellent…friends. Friends who had two kids together and eventually lived separate lives because it was just more comfortable for everyone.
“What did they want?” Molly asked, the dislike of Gavin apparent in her tone.
“Long story.” Rachel grabbed the keys on her way to the door. “I’ll fill you in on the way.”
Where Rachel and Gavin got along fine, he and Molly despised each other. Which Rachel didn’t understand.
“He’s not coming to the game,” Molly correctly guessed. Phone stuffed into her pocket, Rachel flicked on the slow cooker so dinner would be ready when they arrived home. She tossed the extra cookie in a zip-top bag so it would be safe in her purse—once her boys discovered she kept tampons in the interior pocket, they avoided the thing at all costs.
“I guess that means Travis will attend instead,” Molly mused.
She had been working to convince Rachel to practice her flirting skills with Travis Frank for the past four months.
The idea was so far beyond ridiculous, so off the beaten path that it didn’t even show up on Google Maps.
But flirting was Molly’s job, so she looked for opportunities everywhere. Rachel didn’t blame her because Molly literally taught the basics of dating and had to keep her skills sharp for her clients. She used her inability to take no for an answer and her YouTube channel to teach others the intricacies.
“Dane might come,” Rachel said, hoping it was Dane who would attend. Gavin had two brothers. She got along fabulously with Dane. Not so much with Travis.
For a lengthy list of reasons substantially longer than Molly’s meddling.
“It’ll be Travis,” Molly said, a small, knowing smile teasing the edges of her hot-pink-painted lips.
“Probably.” It usually was Travis who filled in when Gavin couldn’t make it. Rachel started the mental prep work for dealing with him. “Do not start up about him again.”
Molly bit at her bottom lip, apparently refusing to respond.
