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And Lucy didn’t look as if she
was faring any better. She rubbed at the back of her neck before sending me a tight smile.
After pouring my drink, I set the orange juice down and decided to just address the elephant in the room.
“Do we need to talk about the ki—”
“What? No!” she blurted, her eyes going wide with alarm. Then she cringed and shook her head. “I mean, no. I don’t think that’s necessary. At all. Do you think we need to talk about it?”
“Uh, no,” I answered, swallowing and shaking my head vigorously. “Not at all. I just… I guess I wanted to make sure I at least apologized.”
She blinked as if confused by why she was getting an apology. So I opened my mouth to explain.
Except she rushed to wave her hand, dismissing the matter. “Oh, you don’t have anything to apologize for,” she insisted. “Emotions were running high. We acted in the heat of the moment, and it was just a…a thoughtless blip that’ll never happen again.”
“Right…” I said slowly, nodding my head once and watching her expression. She blushed, refusing to meet my gaze. It wasn’t until I added a quiet, “Never again,” that she looked up as if surprised and maybe a little disappointed that I had agreed.
But no way in hell was I going to go against anything she said or wanted here. If she wanted to call the hottest kiss of my entire life a blip, then it was a fucking blip. End of story.
In her bouncer, Ava began to fuss, interrupting the moment.
The little imp had a habit of interrupting her mommy and me. I hadn’t yet decided if I was irritated by that or grateful for it.
Lucy seemed grateful, however, as she popped from her chair a little too eagerly and hurried to the bouncer, where she pulled the chubby munchkin into her arms.
“Were you feeling left out over here? Need to be the center of attention again?” Lucy kissed her cheeks, and the baby immediately smiled and cooed in response, a slobber bubble forming from her mouth.
I shook my head. “I swear, she just gets cuter and cuter every day.”
“She does,” Lucy agreed and glanced my way. “And she knows it too.”
“As she should,” I murmured, watching Lucy nuzzle her nose into Ava’s cheek, and Ava grabbed a handful of her hair, promptly chewing on it.
I smiled, realizing how much I’d missed watching them together. I’d stayed away less than a month, and it’d been too much.
Never again, I told myself. I needed this—these two right here, just like this—too much to screw things up again.
I would forget about the kiss, I assured myself. Because I didn’t want to lose them.
I think I stared too long, though, because Lucy cleared her throat and glanced uneasily my way. “Well, I better change her diaper and feed her. If you’ll excuse us...” She’d already started inching her way out of the kitchen.
“Yeah, sure.” I waved them off, tearing my gaze away. “Don’t mind me. I can see myself out when I’m done.”
“Okay. Cool.” She flashed me a relieved smile. “And let me know if you need help with settling in with anything today.”
“Will do.”
With that, she hurried from the room, leaving me alone. I blew out a breath and finished my meal before cleaning up after myself and returning to my new garage apartment.
There wasn’t a curtain or blind over the two windows this place had to offer, so I started a list of things to get the next time I was at the store. Didn’t take me long to add extension cords and power strips under blinds and one of those handheld vacuum things.
I mostly had the bigger things in place as to where I wanted them to go and was just unpacking boxes when a knock came at my door a couple of hours later.
Not at all expecting visitors, I cautiously opened the door and peered out, only to blink when I saw Lucy standing there with Ava, who had a baby sunhat on her head to block her eyes from the daylight.
“Hey.” Lucy’s voice was a little too perky and high. She sounded nervous. “We thought you might be so busy unpacking that you forgot lunch, so we made you a sandwich.” Then she winced as she held it out, all wrapped in a plastic bag. “Sorry if it has too much mayo. Ava got a little wild with the butter knife.”
I grinned at her explanation and reached out. “Thanks, but you didn’t need to—”
