Here With You (A Laurel Heights Novel) - By Kate Perry Page 0,25

you." She rolled her eyes at Olivia's disbelieving gaze. "Seriously. I'm not going anywhere. It's not like that. He's just my old best friend from childhood who's visiting."

"Michael was my best friend from childhood, and he came back to stay."

"Yes, but Grif won't."

Olivia just stared at her.

"I mean it." She rubbed the baby's back, trying not to notice how nice he felt. "He needs a little help, and then he'll be on his way again. He doesn't stay in one place for long."

"Michael didn't either, until he came back and asked me to marry him."

Nicole stilled, caught by the vision of Grif on his knee, asking her to love him forever. Pathetic vision, because it wasn't ever going to happen. He was married to his guitar, whether he remembered it or not.

As if he sensed her unease, Parker began to fidget. She tried rocking him harder, but he began to mewl.

"He's hungry." Olivia held her arms out.

She reluctantly surrendered him to his mom, feeling the loss as soon as he was lifted from her. She'd never thought she'd want children, but maybe she did.

Olivia smiled down at her baby, serene love in her eyes. She rocked him back and forth as she pulled out a bottle from her diaper bag. He latched onto it eagerly, his long fingers curling around hers.

Nicole watched them, feeling their bond and being jealous.

"When Michael came back, I didn't want anything to do with him," Olivia said so softly that, for a moment, Nicole thought she was talking to her son. "I didn't think I could forgive him for leaving me. I didn't think he could make the commitment to settle down. But in the end, I had to try, and I'm glad I did, because otherwise I'd be missing the best days of my life."

Nicole swallowed thickly. "You're saying I should be open, because it'd be better to have loved and lost."

"Hell no." Olivia made a sour face. "Losing sucks. But if there's a window for happiness, you shouldn't miss climbing through it."

"Got it." She sighed. "I'll keep my windows open."

"He may come in through one."

She smiled ruefully. "And escape back out another."

Chapter Eleven

The –sons were standing by the lockers, obviously waiting.

Rachel slowed down, wondering if she should just go on to French without her book or homework, but Madame Roche had been un peu peeved at her yesterday for not having her things with her. Madame had even threatened to call her dad. Rachel had wanted to tell her that wasn't much of a threat, because he didn't care what she did as long as it wasn't illegal.

But Madame Roche was nice, and Rachel felt bad for torturing her, so she actually did her homework last night. It'd been lame and easy, but whatever. No way was she going to take a zero for not doing it just because the –sons were waiting—presumably for her.

Sighing, she kept walking toward her locker. Maybe if she ignored them, they wouldn't exist. Or maybe her new underwear would give her magical powers to zap them away, or make her invisible.

But Madison stepped right in front of her, hands on her hips, glaring. "I know what you're doing."

Rachel looked at her locker, directly behind —son number one. "Getting my homework?"

Like a well-behaved sidekick, Addison backed up her friend with an equally vicious look. "FYI, you're not cute."

She rolled her eyes. "Can we cut with the obvious digs and just get to the point? I'm going to be late for French."

Madison poked her shoulder with a hard, skinny finger.

"Ow." Rachel put her hand over the spot and glared at the girl. "What the hell?"

The girl walked up to her, so close Rachel could see the fine outline of her penciled brows. "Stay away from Aaron Hawke," she said, practically hissing. "You don't have anything he needs."

"And you know this... how?" Rachel stared at her steadily. "Because you and Aaron are BFFs?"

"I've known him way longer than you have. We've been in school together forever. We've talked about going out a bunch of times, but I wanted to wait."

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell the evil —son that Aaron had talked about her, but not in any sort of loving way. And if Aaron was so into Madison, why did he ask her over to dinner at his house?

But behind the malevolent light in the girl's gaze, there was hurt. As much as part of her wanted to exploit that, Rachel couldn't bring herself to