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“Jen is moving in with us,” Blaire said, her arm still around my shoulders.
“Yes!” Annie said.
“Wow, Jen,” Sutton said.
Madison, in response, burst into tears and started screaming. Sutton’s eyes widened in horror and tried to shush her one-year-old. Madison squirmed and flailed until Sutton was forced to put her down into the grass. There, she flopped over and began to wail.
“I have no idea what’s gotten into her lately,” Sutton said in despair. There were black thumbprints under her eyes from lack of sleep, and she seemed to be on her last leg. “Jason was such a good toddler.”
I laughed and leaned down to Madison’s level. Jason had been an exceptionally well-behaved toddler. He still was a really good kid. It had been the easiest nannying job I could have asked for. But I’d babysat toddler monsters for years before taking on Jason full-time. I could generally wrangle even the hardest-to-navigate toddler.
After a few minutes, Madison was in my arms, laughing, and Sutton was staring at me with wide eyes.
“How?” she gasped.
I shrugged. “I’m not exhausted or with her twenty-four/seven. Plus, she knows that she can be herself with you. I’m new and different.”
Sutton just stared, perplexed.
“If y’all need a night to yourself, I don’t mind taking them,” I reminded her.
She laughed. “Yeah. I’m going to have to take you up on that.”
“Godsend,” Annie said. She tapped Blaire’s arm. “We have to go warm up.”
“See you after, roomie,” Blaire said.
They jogged off toward the field, and my eyes snagged on the person they were dragging away—Julian. His eyes were already on me when I found his, and we snapped together like a magnet. He smiled with that look that made my stomach flip and waved before following the girls onto the field.
“What’s up with that?” Piper asked.
“They went away together last weekend,” Sutton filled her in as we headed to the blanket Sutton had laid out for the kids.
Jason was running a small soccer ball up and down the sidelines with David.
Piper’s head whipped to me. “What?”
“We didn’t go away! He came with me to my brother’s graduation.”
“Holy shit! Are you dating?”
I bit my lip and then shook my head. “No. It’s not like that. Just helping out a friend.”
“Yeah, right,” Piper drawled.
“That’s what I said,” Sutton said. “Like, sure, if you hadn’t hooked up, then maybe.”
“Sutton!”
“You hooked up?!” Piper said.
“Shh,” I said, putting a finger over Piper’s mouth. “Way to tell everyone.”
“Oh, sorry. Didn’t realize it was a secret.”
“It’s not a secret. It’s…” Was it a secret? Had Julian told anyone? What did that make us?
Casual. Just having fun. That was what he’d said over that ridiculous doughnut. I’d laughed and felt all good about it then. Now, it felt more complicated, and I didn’t want it to be.
I set Madison down next to the blocks that Sutton had brought and played with her.
“It’s not a secret,” I repeated. “It’s just not…a relationship.”
“Hey, I’ve been on-again, off-again with Bradley for years,” Piper said. “Who am I to judge?”
“Seriously, what is up with y’all?” Sutton asked.
Piper shrugged. “He wants more. He always wants more.”
“And you?” I asked.
Piper frowned. “I feel like it’s missing something, but I haven’t found anything better either.”
“How exactly do you find someone better when you’re still sleeping with the last guy?” Sutton arched an eyebrow.
“Point taken,” Piper said with a laugh. “But how do I find a guy in this small town?”
That was a good question. Annie and Sutton had gotten lucky. David and Jordan had moved here from out of town. Julian was new here, too. But guys from Lubbock? I’d known them all my entire life. The only new guys were usually college students here for Tech. There was some medical and oil money in town, but it wasn’t a huge draw. Which left the guys we’d always known. It was probably why Piper kept going back to Bradley.
With Madison temporarily occupied, we turned our attention to The Tacos game. I went to their games every weekend that I was in town and much preferred the outdoor games to the indoor ones, where we all froze our asses off. There were more players for the outdoor games, too. They’d tried to get me to play, but I had no skill with a ball, just with my dutiful camera that I pulled out of my bag.
Blaire was their star forward. Julian and Isaac played mid along with Hollin’s sister, Nora. She was a tiny pixie of a thing, but she was fast. Her boyfriend, August, played forward with Blaire, but he was mostly there for assists since girl goals counted for two. Hollin and Annie played defense with Annie’s med school friend Cézanne. And Cézanne’s boyfriend, Gerome, was their goalie. Nora and August were the latest recruits for outdoor, and as far as I could tell, they were a big help on the larger field.
