Page 61 of The Right Kind of Wrong

Monroe scoffed. “Sweet on her, Denny? You cannot expect me to answer that seriously.”

“Have the hots for her?”

“Try again.” Monroe refused to let her lips tip into a smile. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“Want to make sweet, sweet love?”

Now she groaned. She absolutely could not allow her imagination to consider a world in which she slept with Blake, Denny’s euphemisms be damned.

She dug her fingers into the countertop behind her. “I’m considering whether joining Dean in prison would be such a bad thing right now. Just so I never have to hear you talk about this again.”

Denny cocked his head to the side. “Wow, so it must be serious,” he said, parroting her own words back to her.

Monroe scrubbed her hands across her face. “There is nothing going on between us. We’re friends. That’s all. Plus, as far as I’m aware, she’s not queer. So you’re going to have to let go of this little fantasy I can see you building about us getting together.”

“But you find her attractive?” Denny pressed, scratching his beard like he didn’t have a care in the world.

He was not, in fact, going to let this go.

He wanted her driven to insanity. She didn’t know why, but it didn’t change the reality that it was happening right now.

Because Blake was attractive. And Monroe was growing . . . fond of her.

Those were simple facts. There was no point in denying them to herself. Or to Denny.

But Monroe was also a fucking mess. With a terrible track record on her one serious relationship, which had also been all kinds of toxic. Oh, and she was also now a parental figure.

Her life couldn’t be any more complicated, at least not from where she was standing.

And then here came Denny, acting like everything was just so simple.

He made her want to scream!

Which she wouldn’t do but— “Yes. My god, you know this, Denny. The world knows it. I mean, look at her!” Monroe’s voice was somewhere between a hiss and a whisper, as she tried to make sure that Maisie wouldn’t overhear. “And I know that you remember I had a crush on her in high school. You’re not as clever as you think, okay? I’ve also been dealing with a five-year-old, so I’m pretty caught up on rudimentary manipulation tactics.”

Denny’s jaw hung open. “I cannot believe you’d accuse me of manipulation. Can’t a man just love love?”

Monroe closed her eyes, shaking her head. “Denny, I swear to god⁠—”

She cut herself off from finishing that sentence when Maisie rounded the corner, nose forward, like a bloodhound tracking a scent. “I smell sketti,” she said, clasping her hands in front of her and leaning forward as she inhaled deeply.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be so hungry after all that ice cream,” Monroe teased, shooting Denny a look before turning back toward the stove. She shut off the boiling water and picked up the pot to strain the noodles.

She couldn’t see Maisie, but she could hear the scrape of a chair being pulled out. “I like your sketti, Aunt Monroe. I was hopin’ that’s what it was. Makes my belly happy.”

Well, those were words that Monroe had never expected to hear. But along with a million parenting tabs always open on her phone, there were almost as many recipe tabs.

And it felt really fucking good to know that all the work that she was putting in was paying off. Even if it was just a simple dinner.

She thought that her mom would be proud of her. She hoped, at least.

“I’m sure I’ll like it too,” Denny added, his own chair scraping against the floor, probably the sound of him pulling in closer to the table.

Monroe rolled her eyes, even if he couldn’t see it. Then, she pushed all of her uncomfortable emotions back down, hoping that she could keep them contained.

But it had already become clear that, at least where Blake was concerned, that was much easier said than done.

She opened the cabinet that housed their plates, grabbing three from the shelf. “Sure, Denny. We’d love to have you for dinner.”