"Thank you.”
I owe you dinner
She messages back immediately.
It's still a no
I grin at her message. It's a no now, but one day it will be a yes. I'm sure of it.
"Are you texting Sam's caseworker again?" Hudson peers up at me from one end of the mattress that him and Marcus are carrying into the bedroom.
"Her name's Alana."
He shakes his head. "Dude, it's tacky to hit on Sam's caseworker. Isn't that against the rules?"
Trust Hudson to want to play by the rules. The guy’s as straight as they come. He should have been a cop, not a SEAL.
"I'm not hitting on her," I lie, slipping my phone into my pocket. "I just have a lot of questions."
They put the mattress on top of the bed, and for the first time it's starting to look less like the dumping ground that was my spare room and more like a kid’s bedroom.
The apartment door buzzes, saving me from answering any more questions about Alana. Not that I need to explain myself to my friends. I like her, I want her, but she doesn't want to go out with me. Not much more to it than that.
I check the door camera, and when I see it's Paige, Hudson's sister, I buzz her up. She's carrying her kid, Noah, in a baby sling around her middle, and her hands are full of pizza boxes.
I open the door and meet her at the elevator to take the boxes off her.
"Thought you could all do with some lunch."
The smell of pizza wafts from the boxes as I plunk them down on the kitchen counter. Hudson and Marcus fall on the pizza, and I snag a slice.
"Pizza's here," I call to Avery.
Paige unbuckles the baby sling, and Noah squirms in her arms. I look around at the boxes of flatpack furniture and the screws and bolts strewn about on the floor.
"Whoa, it's not safe for him. There's bits everywhere."
"It's alright," she says. "I'm not going to put him down yet."
She holds out the wiggling baby and looks at me expectantly.
"What are you doing?"
"You need experience with kids."
Noah holds his hands out to me and giggles. He's cute, but he's a baby. A big baby who's squirming in her hands.
"Sam's six. I don't need baby experience"
Paige shoves him toward me. "It's not that long ago that Sam was this small, and he couldn’t do a thing for himself. You need to know how vulnerable he was. That's where he's coming from."
I stare at Paige as she thrusts her baby at me.
"Just take him, will you? So I can have some pizza."
I stuff the last of the pizza in my mouth and take Noah in my arms. He smells like milk, and he's soft and chubby. I perch on the stool and bounce him on my knee. Noah squirms, wanting to be put down.
"Whoa there, buddy. Let's make this safe for you first."
