“Kid, you are killing me right now.” Nolan clutches his chest. “Not food, Foo Fighters. Just tell Dean what I said.”
Sam’s eyes brighten. “You think that will work?”
“Oh yeah.” Nolan pushes off his stool, making his way around the counter into the kitchen, then deposits his empty plate onto the countertop. “I know it will.”
“Cool. Mario Kart race tonight after practice?”
Before we moved in, I worried most about Nolan and Sam getting along, especially knowing how Nolan feels about kids, but I don’t understand why he says he doesn’t like them. He gets along with Sam just fine, and they’re always off playing video games together or watching true crime documentaries—something I’m not super keen on, but until Sam gets freaked out, it’s fine. Any time we go out to the grocery store or the diner and he sees a kid, Nolan’s always making faces at them and making them laugh.
Sometimes I think he’s better with them than I am, and I’m the parent.
“It’s on, but only if I get to be Mario.”
“Mario is lame. Dibs on Bowser!”
“Dibs on getting you to school on time!” I hate interrupting their moment, but if I don’t get Sam out of this apartment in the next five minutes, he’ll be late. “Do you have your homework?”
Sam snaps his fingers. “That’s what I was forgetting. Be right back.”
Nolan grins after him. “Man, that kid is exhausting.”
“But lovable.” I lean back against the counter. “So, what’s the thing Dean doesn’t want River to know?”
“Nuh-huh,” he says, running his plate under the faucet, then putting it into the dishwasher. He dries his hands on a towel and faces me. “I’m not telling you. You’ll run right to her and I won’t be able to hold it over Dean’s head.”
“I would not run right to her!”
“Please. She’s your best friend. You tell her everything.”
Not everything.
I still haven’t told her I’m sleeping with Nolan, and I’m not sure what’s stopping me.
Maybe because telling someone would make it more real?
Maybe because getting more people involved would make it harder to walk away from?
“That’s not true. I have…secrets.” His eyes widen at that confession. “What? Because I’m a woman I’m incapable of keeping my mouth shut?”
“I didn’t say that. I’m just curious what you’re hiding from her.”
Us.
I shrug. “Stuff.”
“Is it”—he shifts a finger between the two of us—“this?”
“That’s one of the things.”
“Ashamed?” I give him an Are you serious? look. “Because you didn’t sound ashamed last night when I was eat—”
I clamp my hand over his mouth. “Stop it!” I hiss.
He laughs against me, then pulls my hand from his mouth, holding my palm open.
“I’m just saying—you better not be ashamed of us. I’d be offended.”
He presses a kiss to my palm. It’s light and sweet, very different from how he kisses me at night, and my breath gets caught in my throat for a moment.
He closes my fingers around it. “Keep that for later.”
His words feel intimate, wrapping around me like silk, and my hands tremble.
I don’t understand what’s happening, but it’s not something that’s ever happened before…and I don’t know if I like it.
He drops my hand, stepping away from me just before Sam comes around the corner.
I swallow the knot forming in my throat, looking anywhere but at Nolan.
“All right,” Sam says, his shoulders sinking. “Let’s get this day over with.”
“Are you telling me you don’t eat cornbread with chili?”
“Uh, no. I wasn’t aware I was supposed to.” Nolan’s eyes flit down the aisle. “Don’t go too far, Sam,” he calls to my son before looking back down at me like he didn’t just pull a dad move. “We’ve always had peanut butter sandwiches with it.”
“What?” I curl my lip in disgust. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am, but we also ate a lot of peanut butter in my house. They always had it at the food pantry, so we’d find anything we could eat it with. I’ve never had chili any other way.”
My heart squeezes at his words.
Given how much my life has changed in the last few years, sometimes I forget Nolan and I grew up in different worlds. Up until I was sixteen, I lived in a gorgeous house with my parents who had been married since what seemed like the dawn of time. I was a good kid who got good grades. We attended church every Sunday, and we took brownies to our neighbors on the regular. I didn’t want for anything