Page 42 of Forever Only Once
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Seriously. I don’t know how you do it every day, Dakota. But that one time I babysat for a whole evening? I had to take the next day off to recuperate.”
“That’s a lie,” Dakota said, shaking her head as she kept her gaze on her son. “It is not. You’re Superwoman, and I’m a little jealous.” Paris paused. “Maybe not about the whole having to actually give birth thing because that scares me like nothing else, but I’m still jealous.”
“He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Dakota said, an odd twinge in her voice that I caught and thought the others might have, as well, but none of us asked about it in that moment. Dakota’s secrets were her own. The girls knew about my ex, knew that I had been through hell, but we didn’t discuss it at length. I knew I could if I needed to, but I never wanted to.
Dakota continued. “Now, let’s pop open some champagne and sparkling apple juice and begin this brunch,” Myra said, holding two bottles in her hands.
“Apple juice?” Joshua asked, and Dakota sighed.
“One glass of sparkling apple juice. You already had your regular apple juice for the day.”
Myra winced and mouthed the word, sorry.
Dakota just shook her head. “No worries,” she said, and sounded like she meant it.
“And you can have your sparkling juice in your cup with the lid because you’re going to your playroom. Is that all right?” she asked.
“Because I might be a big boy, but big boys still spill,” Joshua said, saying the words by rote as if he had heard and said them a thousand times before. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had.
I laughed with the others as he got his cup, lid and all, and made his way to his room.
Dakota tapped the monitor in front of her. “I can watch him. That way, he has some privacy of his own while we have ours because I want to be able to talk freely about a certain date of yours,” she said to me.
“I’ll go read with Joshua,” I said, and Paris gripped my arm, really tight.
“I’m not going to run away,” I said honestly.
“Sure, you are,” Paris said. “But that’s good. I’ll just chain you here if needed.”
My pulse raced, and she looked at me and cursed under her breath.
“Fuck. I’m sorry.”
“No, no. It’s fine.”
He hadn’t used chains. It had been rope. It didn’t matter, however, because none of that could touch me now. Not physically or mentally.
Just because the girls didn’t know about the recent text, or the fact that he was out of jail, didn’t mean that I had to talk about it now. I was fine.
If I kept saying that word, maybe I would actually believe it.
“Anyway, my date with Cross went well. We kissed,” I said, changing the subject. I knew I was throwing my love life into the fray so they wouldn’t ask about Thomas, but I didn’t want to talk about him.
I couldn’t.
“I know you’re changing the subject, but I’ll allow it because I really want to know about the date,” Paris said quickly.
“So, how was the kiss?”
“Amazing,” I said, my voice a little breathy.
The girls swooned a bit, and I laughed.
“Seriously? No wonder we need this date pact. I said a kiss was amazing with no actual adjectives or descriptors, and it made all of you guys give me that look. You really do need dates.”
“That’s why we made the pact.” Myra threw up her hands. “However, you were first. So we’re going to need details. Lots and lots of delicious details.”