Page 7 of Falling Together

Chapter 7

Erin

Erin jumped when loud banging suddenly started on her bedroom door. In actuality, it probably wasn’t that loud, but after being in the quiet of her room for the past two hours, anything seemed loud. “Mommy! Mommy! Lunch, Mommy!”

Erin groaned as she looked at the time on her computer.

12:30

. She had made the mistake of telling Nolan they would go to the pool after she finished all of her work. It was a Friday, so she was working from home while Blair watched him. When she made that promise, she didn’t realize a huge project would come up that suddenly had to be done as soon as possible. Even though her stomach was growling and yelling at her to eat, she knew if she wanted to keep her promise to Nolan, she needed to work through lunch.

Before she could get the words out to tell him that, Nolan burst into the room. He jumped up on her bed where she was sitting with her laptop open. “It’s time for lunch, Mommy.”

Erin pulled Nolan up against her and sighed. “I can’t today. I’m sorry. If I want to have time to take you to the pool, I need to work through lunch.”

Hearing that the pool was on the line was clearly all Nolan needed to know because he shrugged and jumped from the bed. “Okay, Mommy!”

Erin heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, and a moment later Blair was in her room. She put a hand on her hip and took a deep breath as if she had been running. “Dude. I thought we were playing hide-and-seek. Why are you up here?”

Nolan pointed his little thumb at Erin. “I was getting Mommy for lunch, but she can’t eat because she’s taking me to the pool.”

Blair looked at her with furrowed eyebrows. “You’re not eating lunch today?”

Erin looked at the computer sitting in front of her. Just in the time since Nolan walked in, she had received three more emails. There was no way she could take a break if she was ever going to finish. “Too much to do, sorry. Besides, I’m not even that hungry.” Her stomach betrayed her by letting out an obscenely loud growl at that very moment.

Blair chuckled. “Are you sure about that?”

Erin shook her head. “It really doesn’t matter. I promised Nolan the pool, so that’s more important than food.”

“Okay.”

Blair stared at Erin for longer than seemed necessary, and the whole time, Erin had to ignore how that stare made her feel. How being the center of Blair’s world, even for a few seconds, was like floating away in the clouds.

I know it’s been a long time since you’ve had someone, but stop lusting over the babysitter.

This was a reminder Erin had been forced to give herself way too much lately, especially after Blair dropped everything last week to come over and help Erin take care of Nolan. Blair had let Nolan snuggle up against her on the couch until he drifted into a deep sleep. It was only then that Erin was able to convince Blair it was okay for her to leave. When she walked her to the door, everything inside of Erin was screaming at her to kiss Blair, as if this had been a date and she was dropping Blair off at her front door. Instead, she turned around and grabbed her purse to find cash to give to Blair. After all, this was the babysitter.

And nothing else.

But Blair had put her hand on top of Erin’s and told her she didn’t want the money. She just wanted to help. Blair’s soft touch didn’t make the urge to kiss her any easier to control, so Erin said a quick thank you and opened the door for her. She took a few deep breaths as soon as she closed the door behind Blair. It was like being near her had sucked all the oxygen from the room and Erin could finally breathe again. The problem was that she really didn’t want to…

“Come on, dude. Let’s let Mommy get work done.”

The sound of Blair’s voice snapped Erin out of her daydreams, but by the time she was able to look over to where Blair had been standing, she was gone. Erin sighed even though she knew it was for the best. She

needed

to get this work done.

Unfortunately, only forty-five minutes later, there was another knock on the door. “Honey, Mommy isn’t done with work yet. I just need a little more uninterrupted time.” She tried to keep her voice level, because she didn’t want Nolan to know she was annoyed. It wasn’t his fault. He was too young to understand.

He was clearly also too young to understand directions, because the door slowly creeped open. Only, the person standing there wasn’t Nolan. It was Blair. Blair, who was currently holding a tray of food.

She held the tray in the air. “I’m really sorry to interrupt, but I figured you could use this.”

When she set it down beside Erin, Erin began to laugh. “Ramen noodles and microwave pizza? It’s been forever since I’ve had that. I didn’t even know we had any in the house.”

“You didn’t.” Blair chewed on her bottom lip as though she was nervous for some reason. “I normally bring my own to make myself for lunch since it’s really all I can make.” She shrugged. “I also love it.” Now, she cringed. “I guess you probably have a much more refined palate than I do. You

are

an adult.”

Yes. She was an adult, ten years older than the girl standing next to her bed doing something sweeter than anything she could ever remember her ex doing for her.

Ten years younger is the important part, Erin.

Still, she needed to let Blair know how much the gesture meant to her. “I might be an adult, but who doesn’t love ramen noodles and microwave pizza?”

“Serial killers?” Blair asked with a laugh.

Erin laughed along with her. This was the first time all day she didn’t feel like she was on the edge of a panic attack. “They’d have to be to not like this meal.” She waited for her laughter to subside to say the next part, so Blair knew how sincere she was being. “This is seriously so nice, though. Thank you. You’ve gone above and beyond. Last week you helped when Nolan got sick. This week you’re making me lunch. I really don’t pay you enough.”

Blair shrugged. “It’s not about the money for me. You do so much for Nolan. I’m happy to help where I can.”

“Well, thank you. It means more to me than you’ll ever know.”

It really did. Blair was doing this for no reason other than the fact that she was a really fucking good person. Now if only she were ten years older and

not

Nolan’s babysitter…

***

Thanks to being fueled by ramen noodles and pizza, Erin was able to have her work done by three, which gave her plenty of time to satisfy Nolan’s pool itch.

“Bear, you coming to the pool with us?” Nolan asked as Blair put on her shoes to leave.

Blair ruffled his hair. “Not today, buddy. I have tickets for a show.”

Nolan tilted his head at her. “What kind of show?” His eyes suddenly lit up. “

Bluey

?”

Blair laughed. “No. Definitely

not

Bluey, unfortunately. It’s music. EDM. Have you ever heard of that?” When Nolan shook his head, Blair laughed again. “I didn’t think so. EDM stands for Electronic Dance Music. It’s when people called DJs play really loud, awesome music.”

EDM music? Really? Even when Erin was younger, she was never into that kind of music. She liked her lyrics to have meaning, and so far, she hadn’t found a DJ that used meaningful lyrics (not that she’d been looking). “You mean it’s when people who call themselves musicians push buttons, right?” Erin joked. She just hoped Blair would see it that way and not be offended.

“Ouch.” Blair brought a hand to her chest as if she had just been shot there. “Skratch Sick is amazing and does so much more than just push buttons. Your lack of knowledge is hurting me.”

“Skratch Sick?” Erin couldn’t help but laugh. “Is that who you’re going to see?”

“Yep! Have you heard of him?”

Of course not. Erin was still listening to the same music she had been since she was a teenager—mostly Taylor Swift. “I haven’t. It’s just a very interesting name.”

Blair scoffed. “If by interesting you mean slay, then yes, you’re right.” She looked down at the Apple Watch on her wrist. “I better go, though. I have to get my outfit ready. We’re getting dinner and then going to a bar while we wait for him to go on. I think he said his set starts at midnight, but I better check that again.”

Slay? Midnight?

This whole conversation only confirmed even more that Erin’s fantasies would only ever be fantasies (and really shouldn’t even be that), because she and Blair had nothing in common. “I guess you better go if you’re going to make it there in…” Erin made a point of staring at the clock across the room. “Nine hours.”

“I promise I’m not making up an excuse to leave. We’re heading to dinner in three hours.”

“I’m just messing with you.” Erin waved a hand toward the door. “Go get ready to watch some man push buttons.”

Blair frowned at Nolan. “Your mommy isn’t being very nice to me right now.”

Erin expected Nolan to tell Blair that his mommy is always nice, but instead, he put his hands on his hips and stared at Erin with a scowl on his face. “Be nice to Bear.”

Blair mimicked the face Nolan was making as she looked at Erin as well. “Yeah. Be nice to me.”

Butterflies fluttered through her stomach at the sight of the two of them standing in front of her. Aside from her family, no one else had ever developed this type of relationship with Nolan. Not even her ex-wife. It probably had a lot to do with her having issues letting anyone in after what Bianca did to her, but it was still so nice to see. “Fine. Have fun watching this very talented musician.”

“That’s better.” Blair threw her a wink that

totally

didn’t make those butterflies in her stomach get even worse. Neither did the high five she gave Nolan right before she left.

Nope. Definitely not.

“Ready to go to the pool?” Erin looked at Nolan who was staring at the door, his shoulders now hunched forward as if he was sad. “What’s wrong?” Erin reached out and squeezed his shoulder, but he didn’t look back at her.

“I wanted Bear to come to the pool.”

“I know, buddy, but Blair hung out with you all day. Now she has to go hang out with her other friends.” Was it her friends, though, or was it that girl she said she met at the bar a few weeks ago? Maybe it was another girl. The idea of Blair with other girls shouldn’t make Erin sick, so she decided to ignore the tug at her stomach from just the thought.

Nolan nodded slowly, but continued to stare at the door. A minute later, he finally turned around to look at Erin instead. “I really like Bear, Mommy.”

“Aw, sweetie, I really like her too.”

That was the problem. They both liked her way too much. What happened when this summer came to an end and Nolan went back to daycare and Blair found a new job? Would the two of them be okay?

Luckily, there was still a lot of time before she had to worry about that. They practically had the whole summer.