Page 32 of Texting the Wrong Bikers

“I can still leave,” I offer.

Before she can answer, Owen yells from downstairs, “Mommy, the thunderbike man needs breakfast too.”

Sadie closes her eyes, trying not to laugh, ignoring my amused expression.

“Well,” I say with a grin. “Guess that settles it.” I like the kid already, especially if it means I get to spend more time with Sadie.

Twenty minutes later, I’m sitting at Sadie’s kitchen counter drinking coffee while Owen explains garbage truck mechanics to me with the intensity of a man delivering classified military intelligence. He seems remorseful now that he didn’t wake me up to watch the garbage trucks do their rounds this morning. Thankfully for me, he decided to watch the garbage trucks alone this morning, affording us a little more sleep before he woke us up. Even so, I feel like I’m running on fumes.

Sunlight streams through the kitchen windows, warm against old wooden floors. There’s something homey about the setting. It’s… nice. Too fucking nice.

Owen kneels backward in his chair, eating pancakes vaguely shaped like trucks while asking me approximately nine thousand questions per minute.

“Do motorcycles go faster than tornadoes?”

“No.”

“What about hurricanes?”

“No.”

“What about garbage trucks?”

“Definitely faster than garbage trucks.”

He gasps dramatically. Sadie laughs softly at the stove. Fuck, that sound does something ugly to my chest now.

Her hair is piled messily on top of her head, revealing one of my hickeys that darkens the side of her neck. She’s wearing oversized sleep shorts and no makeup, and she still looks prettier than any woman I’ve seen in years.

This whole situation is dangerous. Not the sex. Not even the shit of an ex-husband. This. The easy warmth of the kitchen. The way Owen constantly talks over her. The way she automatically cuts his pancakes smaller while still talking. Domestic shouldn’t look this good on me. But I can already feel myself getting attached to things I have absolutely no business wanting.

Sadie catches me watching her. Her cheeks pink slightly. “What?”

“Nothing.”

A lie. I should have said ‘everything.’ Because I can’t stop looking at her. Can’t stop imagining waking up here again tomorrow, or next week, or every morning after that.

Owen traces a sticky finger along the motorcycle tattoo on my arm. “This is my favorite,” he declares, adding, “You’ve got lots of tattoos.”

“Sure do.” I thought we’d already covered this, but clearly the kid has more questions.

“Did they hurt?”

“Yep.” I glance up at Sadie over my coffee mug, wondering if I should be discouraging him more.

“Daddy says tattoos suck,” Owen says casually, with no real opinion or feeling on the matter, simply parroting his dad’s words back conversationally without understanding why his dad hates them.

I stop myself from saying that his daddy sucks. Though from the glint in Sadie’s eye, she’s thinking the same thing.

Sadie points her spatula at him. “Language.”

He pouts. “You say suck all the time.”

“I absolutely do not.”

I laugh into my coffee. Owen beams at me like we’re co-conspirators now. Jesus Christ. I like the kid. That realization hits almost as hard as the feelings for Sadie. I don’t do kids, never wanted them, never pictured any version of my life involving pancakes and cartoons and tiny sneakers by the front door, and yet sitting here watching Owen chatter happily as Sadie moves around the kitchen feels weirdly fucking right. Like something I didn’t realize I’d been missing.

By the time breakfast’s over, I know staying longer is a bad idea. Leaving already feels harder than it should.