Page 27 of Nothing to This (Nothing to… #8)

“Look, you’re not going to get anything from me except my complete unadulterated support,” Brenna said, watching Kye go back and forth on the swing. “I told you the first night you and the kids stayed with me that my brother was an idiot. I said it last night when you and Sky stayed over again.”

Seated on a bench in the park not far from her apartment, the joy on her son’s face as he tried to make the swing go on his own gave her hope.

He wasn’t doing a half bad job. Sky would demand to be pushed, but Kye was all determined effort.

A quality magnified since his father moved in.

What would happen when said father disappeared from their lives?

At that moment, Sky was at the ball with her father. Her little girl brimmed with excitement all day. Matching her daughter’s exuberance wasn’t so easy knowing disappointment lurked on the horizon.

“If you don’t want Kye and me to stay over—”

“I do, honey.” Brenna picked up her hand. “You know I love having you. Lotta will be back tomorrow. I’m not sure how I’ll tell her I’ve been sleeping with another woman the whole time she’s been gone but…”

Feeling pathetic, she mustered a laugh, and appreciated Brenna kissing the inside of her knuckles. “I don’t know what to do, Bren. The kids are so psyched for their birthday party in the park this weekend. I don’t know how to tell them their dad will be gone twenty-four hours later.”

“Make him tell them,” Brenna said. “Have you talked to him since… you know… the Gabby date?”

Their fight in the office had taken place two days ago.

“It wasn’t the date that upset me, it was the lie,” she said for what felt like the fiftieth time. “I’ve been professional at the office. I haven’t been alone with him. I won’t be alone with him.”

“And you’ve been sleeping at my place,” Brenna said and dragged her across the bench to embrace her. “You know it’s your apartment. You can kick him out.”

Maybe that was why she’d been staying away rather than asking him to leave. If she told JD to go, she’d be the bad guy in the eyes of the kids, and there was the chance he’d never come back.

“I suppose I’m going to have to make nice before the birthday party. The kids haven’t noticed we’re not happy with each other because they’ve been so busy this week. If they have to see us in the same room together or at the same event…”

“Yeah, you two aren’t great at hiding how you feel about each other when you’re standing side by side.”

Her phone made a noise; she pulled her bag closer to get it. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She read the text that popped up. “He and Sky are leaving the party.”

“It’s not even nine.”

“This is late for a four-year-old, believe me,” she said and stood up, hooking her purse strap over her arm. “Kye! Come on, little prince.” When it looked like he was trying to stop without much success, fear gathered on his face. “Just wait, I’m coming, baby.”

She and Brenna headed over there.

“You know, you could tell him to stay at the hotel. The event is at a hotel, right? Sky would love getting a big fancy room.”

“It wouldn’t be fair to do that without Kye,” she said, smiling when she stopped the swing and picked up her boy. “Ready to go?”

“I want Daddy to tuck me in,” Kye said.

She made eye contact with Brenna. “I guess we’re going home.”

***

Both she and Kye got ready for bed and were in his room reading when they heard Sky tearing through the apartment. Like a little tornado all of her own.

She’d just put the book aside when Sky ran into Kye’s room and did a twirl in her dress.

She’d been the one to put Sky in the dress because JD had meetings at work that meant he only had time to swing by and pick up his date. Yet Sky twirled like she and Kye were seeing her for the first time.

Witnessing her daughter’s joy filled her with her own. “Did you have fun, sweetpea?”

“I went to a ball!” Sky said and ran to the bed to climb up with them.

She scrambled all the way to the top and tried to stand up. Settling Sky in her lap, she unbuckled her shoes. Kye was still sitting under her arm, now hypnotized by the intricate twinkling beads on Sky’s dress that caught the light from his lamp.

“I know you did, sweetpea.”

“Daddy danced with me,” Sky said, helping her mom take off her shoes.

JD appeared in the doorway. The moment their eyes met, she distanced herself by loosening Sky’s hair. Kye climbed out of bed to run over to his dad, who caught him and picked him up.

“Did he?”

“Uh huh,” Sky said. “I dranked shampoo.”

“Champagne?” she asked.

While their daughter nodded, she looked to a smiling JD.

“Grape juice,” he said. “They put it in a flute for her. She was the belle of the ball, the most beautiful girl in the room.”

With the pins and ribbons put aside, she ran her fingers through Sky’s hair.

“Daddy’s friend was prettiest. She had pretty sparkles on. Dee-mons.”

“Diamonds?” she asked, easing her daughter onto the bed so she could get up.

Kye wouldn’t take long to settle, and Sky was hyper. When the excitement wore off, she’d be out like a light.

“Mm huh,” Sky said, wriggling to the edge of the bed as her mom removed her pantyhose. “Daddy boughted them for her.” That slowed her. Oblivious Sky looked past her mom to her daddy, probably still in the doorway. “I want dee-mons, Daddy. Will you get me dee-moms like Gabby’s dee-mons?”

Shock forced her to her feet, anger burning her insides. Only the vision of her innocent daughter wiggling her perfect little toes like Ariel reminded her to grit her teeth and breathe through it.

Slowly counting to ten, she took a long, deep breath before gathering all of Sky’s things and taking her daughter’s hand. “Come on, sweetpea. Mommy will get you ready for bed.”

“Oh, Momma!”

“No, it’s bedtime, no complaining.”

Sky hopped off the bed and went with her. “Kye is not in bed.”

“He wanted Daddy to tuck him in,” she said just as they reached the door and she landed a glare on JD. “Put your son to bed, JD.”

***

As she’d predicted, Sky dropped like a sack of potatoes when the adrenaline wore off. After changing and brushing her teeth, Sky was dragging her feet. She didn’t get through reading two full pages of a story before she drifted off.

When she turned off the light and pulled the door over, there in the dark hallway was JD, leaning against the wall.

“Are we going to talk or ignore each other for another night?”

She opened her bedroom door and gestured him inside before following and closing the door so as not to disturb the kids.

“You’re a brave man initiating conversation with me tonight,” she hissed, finding it hard to restrain her anger.

“What the hell did you think you were doing introducing your girlfriend to our daughter? I don’t care if you guys rekindled your engagement on Tuesday night, you should’ve spoken to me before doing it. ”

“Gabby isn’t my girlfriend,” he snapped and leaped closer.

She raised a hand. “Keep your damn voice down. You should have let me meet her first. We should have had a conversation with the kids. We—”

“Gabby was at the event, just like two hundred other people. Yes, she spoke to Sky, but I didn’t introduce them, she introduced herself.”

“So you’re telling me you can’t protect our daughter from your lover? Is that what you’re saying? And it’s supposed to make me feel better? If I had tried this shit with Baxter—”

“How long are we going to do this?” he asked, his own irritation warming her as he matched her vicious hiss.

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“I didn’t sleep with Gabby. Yes, I went to the hotel to meet her on Tuesday. I met her at the bar. Told her I wasn’t interested in anything she had to say and that my family was the only thing that mattered to me. I didn’t even know she was going to be at the event tonight.”

“That’s convenient.”

“Not really,” he retorted. “Not when I come home to this. Gabby approached us, I walked away. She tried it again, I warned her off. There’s only so much you can say in explicit terms in front of an astute four-year-old.”

“You’ve got an excuse for everything. Just like when I found out about California—”

“Oh, come on, Rylee,” he said, leaning back and raising his arms. “You weren’t upset about California, you were upset about Gabby calling me!

” He let his arms fall and looked square at her.

“And you’re not upset that Sky met a random person.

You’re upset that person is someone who once meant something to me. ”

“Yes! Exactly! I don’t think introducing our daughter to your future bride without—”

“How long are we going to do this?” he asked again, seeming less angry.

On the back foot, she didn’t expect him to cut off his fury so abruptly.

Adrift, she couldn’t adjust. “I don’t know what…”

Coming closer, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist to pull her to him, sweeping the hair from her face.

“I want you, Siren,” he murmured, gazing down into her. “There, I said it, and the walls didn’t come crashing down.”

“Stop it, JD,” she said. He didn’t stop and held her in place when she tried to back off. “This isn’t the time for your games or your charm. I’m mad.”

“I know,” he said, but smiled. “There’s nothing to be mad about.

I was never leaving you for California. It was a business trip, two weeks max.

nothing more. And if you don’t want me to go, I won’t go…

And Gabby’s nothing. No one to me. You’re the woman who’s infected me, my thoughts, my dreams. You’ve enchanted me, Siren. I want you.”

“Stop saying that,” she exhaled and dropped her chin; he scooped it back up with a finger. When he dipped lower, she planted her hands on his chest and pushed. “No. You can’t, JD. We can’t.”

“The kids are asleep,” he said, stroking her face. “We can.”

“No.” She shook her head. “We can’t… do this… not ever.”

He lost some of the drowsy, bewitched desire that had clouded his expression and frowned instead. “I don’t understand. I know you’re attracted to me.”

She kept her pressure on her palms against his chest. “That doesn’t matter. We can’t be together.”

Offence gathered in him again. “Why? Why not?”

“Because we have two children.”

“That would seem like the perfect reason to me.”

“We have to parent them first. That has to be our primary priority. We can’t play at boyfriend and girlfriend in front of them.

We’ve never been together in a relationship to know how it would work out.

Being friends for a few weeks is not the same as a long-term, permanent relationship with all the trials that brings. ”

“Rylee, I—”

“Don’t you see? We’d be serious from the moment of the very first kiss.

We can’t date, see how it goes and just break up like we would with anyone else if it wasn’t working out, like we did with Baxter and Gabby.

We’re parents… and parents who live together at that.

I’ve been terrified of how we’ll tell the kids when the time comes for you to move out because they’ve gotten so used to having you here.

How do you think they’ll feel if their parents get together, fool around for a few weeks and then break up?

Right now, we can work through things as co-parents, because we’re both prioritizing the kids.

How long do you think we can keep doing that, or working together at Duo, if we let messy, complicated emotions get involved? ”

Letting her go, he moved away from her, running a hand through his hair. “You’ve thought about this,” he muttered.

“Yes, I have. Probably more than I wanted to admit to myself.”

He turned around to look her in the eye. “I want you.”

So damn sure; that certainty was humbling and flattering. That he was making his admission, and allowing her to make hers, put a lot of things about the week suddenly into perspective. His accusations weren’t wrong.

“I believe you, JD. I do. I hate myself for believing you, but I do. But we have to look beyond what our hormones want from us.”

Sinking down, he sat on the edge of her bed. “What do you mean?”

“I want to get married one day, JD,” she said. “You backed out of one engagement already. Maybe marriage isn’t something you want.”

“Ry, that was—”

“And you said you want the option of having more children in the future… I’m not sure I want more kids.

Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. I haven’t decided on that yet.

” Seeing his internal struggle drew her closer until she was kneeling on the edge of the bed beside him.

“We acted on pure instinct once and, yes, it gave us the most incredible children, who I wouldn’t trade for anything, but it altered the entire course of my life.

” Letting the back of her fingers drift up his five o’clock shadow, she tempted him to see her smile.

“You’re a good dad, JD, and you’ve become a good friend.

I don’t want us to compromise either of those things just because your suite has a bar… you know?”

Taking her hand from his cheek, he pressed it to his mouth. “It’s more than that, Siren.”

“I know,” she whispered, ignoring the tear that tracked down her cheek. “But we are for what we created. We’re irrelevant.”

Their feelings, whatever they were, had to be ignored in lieu of their duties and responsibility to the kids. She could kiss him and they could fall into bed, but what would tomorrow bring?

They had to put a stop to this before it started. California couldn’t be coming at a better time; distance might be their only saving grace. If it was, they needed to put as many miles between them as they could… and fast.