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“Hi,” I murmured around white foam and the head of the toothbrush.
“You’re not mad, are you?”
“No,” I scoffed. “Why would I be mad?”
It wasn’t his fault I couldn’t afford anything in this god-awful city. Maybe Tucker could babysit Gravity for some of the time I needed for work. Yesterday, when he came to see her, he wasn’t completely awful. Still cold and detached, but they watched TV together and ate Italian wedding soup in silence, and she seemed cool about it. Not rabid like she was with Rhyland, but definitely comfortable.
Rhyland shrugged, burying his face in my throat. “I don’t know. Just checking. Do you want me to leave?”
I should say yes. We’d already had sex twice today. It was late, and I’d see him tomorrow morning anyway for our Texas trip.
“No,” I heard myself say.
“Do you want to have sex again?” He grinned cheekily against my skin.
“Yeah, in a little bit.” I spat foam into the sink, flicking the water on. “If you’re up for it.”
“I’m always up for it.” He thrust his now fully erect cock between my ass cheeks. “All puns intended.”
I was wrong.
I wasn’t a sex addict.
I was a Rhyland addict.
DYLAN
Grav was equal parts excited and frightened for our plane ride. I couldn’t blame her. There was something deeply unsettling about entering a metal tube someone else was in charge of that soared through the sky. She’d been on airplanes before, when we went to visit Row and Cal, but back then, she was too young to understand what was happening.
I dutifully distracted her with snacks and Bluey—every parent’s emergency kit for the distressed child.
Throughout the flight, Rhyland looked right at home on the private plane, working on his laptop and occasionally goofing around with Grav. It was a reminder that our lives weren’t the same. Not really. In a few days, he’d return to his glamorous existence with his billionaire friends, and I’d keep busting my ass in a bar to make ends meet and bickering with a good-for-nothing ex about supervised visits with our daughter.
The flight passed quickly, and we were greeted by a huge black Escalade that took us to Bruce and Jolene’s ranch on the outskirts of Dallas. Grav was glued to the window, nose smushed to the glass, oohing and aahing at the sunflower and strawberry fields. Rhyland and I were kind and impersonal with each other, as we always were around my daughter. I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea. To get her hopes up. To get mine up.
It was an hour before we reached the ranch-style house, which appeared surprisingly modest. Gray brick, with open red shutters, overhanging eaves, and a wide, open-plan porch. Surrounding it were cattle grazing freely. Cows, elk, and sheep with shepherd dogs running around.
An intense pang of realization stabbed at my chest. This was what I wanted for my daughter. This carefree, natural lifestyle.
Bruce and Jolene were waiting on the porch with sweet iced teas, sitting on rocking chairs and talking easily. They stood up as we poured out of the vehicle. The golden glint of an unforgiving summer glazed every surface—the ground, the walkway, the heat rolling off the concrete walls of the house—and Gravity, who in her excitement forgot to be shy, dashed outside, running everywhere, trying to play with the dogs.
“Grav,” I laughed nervously, trying to snatch her back to me. “Careful, sweetie. You don’t want—”
Rhyland scooped her up even though he was holding both our suitcases. “No way, little stinker. We’re going to ride horsies together now.”
Bruce and Jolene approached us, and we exchanged pleasantries. They were obviously impressed by the deep, genuine connection Rhyland had with my daughter.
“Hey, Lil Miss.” Bruce tousled Gravity’s hair affectionately. “Does Mr. Rhyland right here take you to do fun things?”
“Yes!” My daughter’s eyes widened with delight. “We do all the fun things together. And he makes me waffles.”
Rhyland sent Bruce a satisfied smirk, and it occurred to me his relationship with my daughter could be part of a grander, more sophisticated scheme. The thought made me shudder.
Jolene and Bruce showed us around the house. It was an open-plan, one-story, L-shaped house with two wings. Their bedroom was on one side, ours on the other, and there was a huge living room and two dining areas in between.
“I raised my five kids in this place.” Jolene touched her cheek longingly as we weaved in and out of comfortable, generously furnished rooms that smelled of farmland, with dancing curtains and folded quilts and the intense, pleasant feeling of home.
“You have five kids?” I shrieked. I had one kid—not a particularly difficult one—and still found it overwhelming.