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Chapter Three

TAYLOR

If there was one thing that I took away from the night I had drinks with Leo, Jacqueline, and Nicole, it was that Nicole’s kisses were practically drugging.

She was an excellent kisser.

I had kissed many, many people in my life.

In my early twenties, I went through a hoe phase, just as any other person does. I wasn’t unfamiliar with kissing. I had it down to a science. Kissing was an art I had perfected over time. Something as second nature to me as breathing.

But kissing Nicole Young in that taco bar the other day?

I felt like a virgin again.

And I didn’t even believe in the social construct of virginity.

A Nerf dart pinged me in the head, and I was immediately pulled out of my thoughts. I blinked back into the present, pushing the haunting memory of Nicole’s soft hands holding my face to hers, to see Iris St. James standing above me, holding a Nerf gun right at my forehead.

She had found my hiding spot, which wasn’t hard to do since I was just crouching behind the couch.

“Gotchya,” she grinned, an evil sneaky grin that could have been copied and pasted onto her face from her mother’s. Perhaps it was the freckles they shared.

“Darn,” I shook my head, standing up to accept my defeat, “I need to hide better. You’re too good at this.”

“Wait!” The five-year-old lifted her hands as her wide eyes flitted around the living room, “Let’s pretend you’re on my team now.”

“Okay!” I crouched low, following her to the other side of the living room and hiding behind one of the ancient, ugly accent chairs that had existed for decades before Iris was even a thought.

Upstairs, we heard Susie stomping around.

“Are you ready?” I lifted my own Nerf gun and set it on top of the chair, hiding most of my body from view. Iris leaned to the side, closing one eye and aiming at the end of the staircase as if she were lining up a shot using a scope.

“Ready, Freddy.” She replied.

The two of us held our breath as we waited for Susie to hop down the stairs. She was humming a song of some kind, completely lost in her thoughts.

Poor kid didn’t stand a chance.

As soon as she came into view, Iris and I unloaded our Nerf guns.

Susie immediately laughed and lifted her hands to shield herself, before accepting her fate and dramatically pretending to die. She clutched her stomach, tipping precariously from side to side, moaning and gargling.

Iris was cackling throughout the whole performance.

Eventually, Susie fell to her knees, wailing and gasping, before falling face-forward onto the hardwood floor.

Damn, get this girl into Hollywood .

“We won!” Iris cheered, dropping her gun to hold both of her fists in the air.

I scooped Iris up and managed a very awkward victory lap around the living room, before plopping the two of us back onto the worn yellow couch.

The townhome had changed a lot since Courtney and Josh moved in, but through years of determination, Courtney was able to maintain the old furniture by reupholstering them with identical fabrics and learning how to rebuild the framework by watching a ton of YouTube videos.

Courtney Madey was very sentimental about the ugly accent chairs and yellow couch, but the rest of the townhome felt updated.

Susie giggled before pushing herself up and resting on her knees, “The babies are asleep.” She announced.

Susie was obsessed with her baby brother, the little guy less than a year old.

She helped Courtney feed, burp, and rock the little man to sleep.

She even demanded that she be the one to feed him his first solid food, pureed carrots.

Iris, however, often forgot that she even had a baby brother. The boys were only a few weeks apart in age.

“Thanks for checking on them,” I sighed to Susie, stretching my neck out.

The doorknob to the front of the house started jiggling, and Iris quickly turned her head to look at me. Her dark curls, so similar to her dad’s, swung with the movement. Her eyes were wide, and her lips were pulled down in a dramatic frown.

“No, I don’t want you to leave yet!” Iris cried.

“This is my house, you’re the one leaving,” Susie corrected, standing up and racing toward the entryway.

When Logan St. James filled the doorway, followed by his wife, Eloise, Susie sighed.

“Oh, it’s just you.”

“Damn,” Eloise laughed, scrunching her freckled nose, “Sorry to disappoint.”

“How was it?” I asked them as I stood from the couch. Suddenly, Iris latched her arms and legs around my calf. I found myself dragging the five-year-old with me as I shuffled to greet her parents.

“It was good, thanks again for watching everyone,” Eloise smiled as she moved to the side, letting Susie race out the door and down the porch steps.

“Of course,” I grinned down at her daughter, giggling as I pretended to be unaffected by her koala-bear grip on my leg, “I had fun with these crazies.”

“More fun than you would have had at the orchestra?” Eloise asked with a lifted blonde eyebrow. Her parents had gifted everyone with tickets, and as cool as orchestras were, I preferred babysitting for my friends instead of sitting through a boring-as-hell performance.

“That’s not even a question.”

I grinned when the sound of Susie’s laughter echoed through the front door. Dark curls fell over Logan’s forehead while he crouched to try to untangle his daughter’s limbs from my leg. Meanwhile, Joshua Madey marched through his doorway with Susie slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“You think you’re so funny,” Josh smiled as he tickled his daughter’s side. Her limbs were flailing as she struggled to get free, but Josh kept his hold as he passed us to drop Susie on the couch.

“What did she do?” I asked.

Courtney, Josh’s wife, finally made it through the threshold, attempting to hold her laughter in as she shut the door behind her, “She ran out to greet us. Josh got excited and crouched down to open his arms for a hug, and—” She covered her hand with her mouth, her eyes watering as she struggled to compose herself, “Susie turned around, bent over and—and farted—”

Logan dropped his hands from his daughter, unable to detach her from my leg yet, and covered both of his large hands with his face as he struggled through his quiet laughter. Eloise lifted her head back and cackled.

Courtney couldn’t hold it in anymore and tucked her shirt over her face to laugh.

“You think it’s funny to try to give me pink eye?

” Josh called from the living room, attacking Susie with tickles until she was pink in the face, “How would you like it if I farted on you?” He turned around and pretended to sit on Susie.

He supported enough of his weight by clutching the arm of the couch but kept her pinned beneath him.

“No! Don’t do it! Yours are deadly!” Susie cried.

“It’s only fair!” Josh taunted, wiggling his butt for theatrics.

In front of me, Logan finally untangled his daughter from my leg. She was now dead weight as her dad tried to get her to stand up and slip her shoes on. Iris wouldn’t have it, she kept flopping onto the hardwood floor, making it as difficult for her dad as possible.

Eloise crouched down, accepting her daughter’s faceplant onto the floor, and started to slide her shoes on anyway.

“Were you good for T today?” Eloise asked her daughter.

“I was perfect,” Iris promptly responded with a nod against the floor.

I snorted, but backed her up, “She was great.”

Logan helped Eloise gather their daughter’s things before he tiptoed upstairs to get their sleeping baby; a car seat looped on his arm.

After that, Eloise and Logan eventually waved goodbye and piled into their truck.

Courtney and Josh were chatting with Susie, so I decided to excuse myself and call it a night.

I stepped out onto their porch, inhaling the cool, fresh nighttime air. Thick with humidity. Just how I liked it.

It was quiet on their street.

The sound of Courtney laughing and Susie’s voice rambling on about something, attempting to be heard over her mother’s laugh, made something ache in my chest.

Loneliness .

I winced at my own thought. Lonely? I wasn’t lonely. I loved being alone. I appreciated what all my friends had, but I didn’t need that myself. I didn’t need the marriage and white picket fence with two-point-five kids and a dog.

It was all so… hetero .

I shook the thought away, annoyed with myself as I settled into my car.

Big, brown eyes and dark black hair kept filling my vision the entire drive home.