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“Lana? No. Sorry. It’s not too late at all. Are you calling about the flat?” he asked.
“Flat?” I shot back. “That is very… British of you,” I said.
To that, I heard a little chuckle.
“When I bought my house, the listing said it came with a ‘granny flat.’ I guess the term stuck. So, you might be interested?” he asked.
“Maybe. I was wondering if I could come and look at it first,” I said.
“Sure,” he agreed. “I’m always free in the mornings,” he told me.
“Mornings work for me too. How morning is morning? I only ask because my neighbors to the left think morning begins only after five a.m., when they finally stop fighting and go to sleep. And to the one to the right thinks it is at six a.m., when they start running on their treadmill like they’re training for the zombie apocalypse.”
“I think five and six are a little too morning for me. Eight? Nine?”
“Nine works for me,” I said, knowing that Miss Patricia would be ready for the kids then.
An hour. It would just be an hour.
And I’d skip a shooting session to make up for it. I needed to work anyway.
“Perfect. I’ll text you the address,” he told me.
“Great. Thank you,” I said, trying not to sound too desperate. For the house. For his cock. For… anything he had to offer.
God, what was wrong with me?
Given my life the past few years, the absolute last thing I should have had any interest in was another man.
But, I reasoned, it wasn’t like you could argue with hormones. They existed to make you go out and get that dick, whether you were actually mentally or emotionally ready for that yet.
“And the last thing we need right now is another man in our life, right?” I asked Clara as I pulled her onto my chest as I settled on the couch to catch some sleep, knowing she would be up soon for her last feed and change, so there was no use putting her back in the all-in-one playard.
As if protesting this statement, though, Clara let out a restless grumble that some little, hidden part of me nodded agreement with.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lana
I kept the kids with me until the last possible moment, even though they interrupted my shower no less than five times—twice only to ask me why I was taking so long.
Isaac, my little helper, started putting some of their activities into his backpack to bring over to Miss Patricia’s. She had firm rules against Play-Doh and Legos. Which sucked because the former would keep Hazel busy for hours, as would the latter for Isaac.
They’d have to settle for coloring books, figurines, and little travel games that Hazel didn’t quite get the hang of yet—much to Isaac’s frustration—but he would keep trying.
An hour. It was just an hour.
“You look pretty, Mommy,” Hazel said, perched on the side of the tub, watching me as I applied some light mascara and lip gloss.
I was putting too much effort into it.
I knew it, but I couldn’t quite stop myself as I fluffed my hair that had a little more wave to it thanks to actually doing more than running a brush through it.
I’d even put another dress on. Sure, I tried to tell myself it was because it was hot, and dresses were cooler even than shorts.
But I knew that the reason I’d picked the black dress with a lemon print was less to do with the heat, and more to do with the man I was about to go see.
“Thank you, baby,” I said, giving her a smile. “You’re the prettiest, though,” I told her, smiling at her in her sweet little canary-yellow romper that, if it survived the summer, I would tuck away for Clara to wear one day.
“When you get home, can we have waffles?” she asked.
My sweet little girl, along with being obsessed with ketchup, loved anything that involved syrup.
“I think we can have breakfast for dinner tonight,” I said. Isaac was less of a waffle fan, but he did love eggs and frozen sausage links. “But for lunch on the beach, we are having PB&Js,” I reminded her, even though she’d helped me make and pack them, so I could grab them as soon as I got back.
“Okay,” she agreed, dancing one of her little pony figurines across the edge of the tub.
“Alright. I’m ready,” I said, pretending to ignore the look of disappointment on her face.
It was just an hour, I told myself for the thirtieth time that morning.
“Thank you so much for this,” I told Miss Patricia as I handed her Clara, smiling a little at the way she cradled her.
She’d been a mother once. To three little babies who all, in some way I couldn’t bring myself to ask, all passed before their first birthdays. After that, it seemed, she stopped trying. But she clearly had a soft spot for small babies.
