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“Sounds like fun.” She whipped a tissue from the box on the counter and wiped the red sauce off her cheek.
“Oh, yes! Fun, Mama. I happy.” He shoved a meatball in his mouth with one hand and waved his spoon with the other.
“Use your spoon for eating,” Lani said from over by the sink.
“Yes, Lani. I do!” He switched the spoon to the other hand and scooped up a mound of pasta. Most of it fell off before he got it to his mouth, but he only gamely scooped up some more.
“You’re early,” said Lani, turning to glance at her over the tops of her black-rimmed glasses. “And those roses are gorgeous.”
“They are, aren’t they? And as to being early, hey, it’s almost the weekend.”
“That never stopped you from working late before.” Lani grabbed a towel and turned to lean against the sink as she dried her hands.
Her full name was Yolanda Ynez Vasquez and she was small and curvy with acres of thick almost-black hair. She’d been working for Sydney for five years, starting as Sydney’s housekeeper. The plan was that Lani would cook and clean house and live in, thus saving money while she finished college. But then, even after she got her degree, she’d stayed on, and become Trevor’s nanny, as well. Sydney had no idea how she would have managed without her. Not only for her grace and ease at keeping house and being a second mom to Trevor, but also for her friendship. After Ellen O’Shea, Yolanda Vasquez was the best friend Sydney had ever had.
Lani said, “You’re glowing, Syd.”
Sydney put her hands to her cheeks. “I do feel slightly warm. Maybe I have a fever….”
“Or maybe someone handsome sent you yellow roses.”
Laughing, Sydney shook her head. “You are always one step ahead of me.”
“What’s his name?”
“Rule.”
“Hmm. Very … commanding.”
“And he is. But in such a smooth kind of way. I went to lunch with him. I really like him. He asked me to dinner.”
“Tonight?” Lani asked.
She nodded. “He invited me to meet him at the Mansion at Turtle Creek. Eight o’clock.”
“And you’re going.” It wasn’t a question.
“If you’ll hold down the fort?”
“No problem.”
“What about Michael?” Michael Cort was a software architect. Lani had been seeing him on a steady basis for the past year.
Lani shrugged. “You know Michael. He likes to hang out. I’ll invite him over. We’ll get a pizza—tell me more about Rule.”
“I just met him today. Am I crazy?”
“A date with a guy who makes you glow? Nothing crazy about that.”
“Mama, sketti?” Trev held up a handful of crushed meatball and pasta.
“No, thank you, my darling.” Sydney bent and kissed his plump, gooey cheek again. “You can have that big wad of sketti all for yourself.”
“Yum!” He beamed up at her and her heart felt like it was overflowing. She had it all. A healthy, happy child, a terrific best friend, a very comfortable lifestyle, a job most high-powered types would kill for. And a date with the best-looking man on the planet.
Sydney spent the next hour being the mother she didn’t get to be as often as she would have liked. She played trucks with Trev. And then she gave him his bath and tucked him into bed herself, smoothing his dark hair off his handsome forehead, thinking that he was the most beautiful child she had ever seen. He was already asleep when she tiptoed from the room.
Yolanda looked up when she entered the family room. “It’s after seven. You better get a move on if you want to be on time for your dream man.”
