changed.
Until my mom died. Then every-fucking-thing changed.
I’d just graduated college with a bachelor’s in communications—a.k.a.: the easiest, most useless degree UGA had to offer. Cal was heading to Emory, but the Lawsons had been kind enough to let me crash at their place while they, Lex, and her boyfriend spent the summer at their Hilton Head Island beach house.
I’d never forget that phone call. I hadn’t spoken to my mom in years, with the exception of when she called to borrow money, but the finality of finding out she was dead rocked me to the core.
I raged.
I collapsed.
And I was bitter as fuck that I even cared at all.
I don’t remember when she’d shown up. Or how she had known to come over to begin with. But when Lauren Rafferty appeared, the weight of the universe somehow seemed lighter. While everyone else was supportive and there for me, she never left my side that summer.
As my mother’s closest surviving relative, I was stuck with handling all the details. The funeral, the legalities, cleaning out her piece-of-shit apartment. God bless the Lawsons, they’d loaned me the money to pay for everything—a debt I repaid the second I was able.
But through it all, Lauren was there.
That was when I knew I loved her. It was the kind of love that burrowed deep into the marrow of my bones. She was beautiful, and funny, and sweet. What was there not to love?
One night in late August, days before she was supposed to start her last year at Georgia Tech, we got drunk and my dumb ass confessed my feelings. She was shocked. A little weirded out. But see the aforementioned drunk part.
Under the stars that night, Lauren and I had the most awkward, uncomfortable, horrible sex of my entire life.
Seriously, almost eight years later, I still cringed when I thought about it.
We decided the very next day that the love I was feeling deep in the marrow of my bones was the thank-you-for being-there-when-I-needed-you kind and not of the let-me-strip-you-naked variety. Four weeks later though, when she came to me crying and holding a pregnancy test, I was grateful there was at least some love between us, no matter the variety.
I’d been terrified about having a baby. Scared I was going to fail my kid the same way my parents had failed me. Scared that I was twenty-two, unemployed, living with my best friend’s family, and had no fucking idea what the hell I wanted to do with my life.
But once again, Lauren was there to quell the storm, and nine months later, our little man, Jackson David Bradley was born.
Let me be honest, there was nothing and I mean nothing that could test the bonds of a friendship more than co-parenting with someone. Through the years, there had been times when Lauren and I were at each other’s throats. There were also days when she’d call me to see if I needed anything from the grocery store, or I’d run over to her place to fix her leaky pipes. It was a process we took day by day, but all in all, I thought we were doing a pretty remarkable job at giving our son the life he deserved.
So, no. Long story long, I had zero interest in getting married.
Besides, while I was no expert, I assumed dating was required before the whole tying-the-knot thing anyway. I was far from celibate, but the idea of bringing another woman into Jack’s life and flipping our entire comfortable world upside down was a hard no. There was no amount of shit Cal, Lex, or even Lauren could give me that would change that.
“You owe Aunt Lex twenty bucks,” Jack said, falling into step beside me.
“What? Why?”
“Because she bet me you wouldn’t catch that rubber band thing Uncle Cal threw at you. I told her you used to play football, so there was no way you were going to miss. You should have warned me your nickname was actually Butter Fingers.”
I shot him a glare. “First, you’re seven. You aren’t allowed to gamble yet. Second, for the last time, my nickname was Sticky Hands. Get it right.”
He let out a surly scoff, which I chose to ignore in the name of picking my battles while trying to parent a twenty-five-year-old first grader.
“And third, it sounds like you owe her twenty bucks, not me.”
“Oh, no way! You missed it on purpose. That bet was rigged from the start. You two are lucky I don’t get a