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“I’m going to start charging you rent, Cliff,” Sera said to him like she always did.
“I’ll pay you to show me your kinky moves, Mom Lovely.” He winked at her.
“You’ll just have to live with listening to them through the walls, Cliff,” Sera said. She knew the walls were thin, and Lucy’s bedroom was on the other side of hers.
“Lucy said you nabbed a man at the party yesterday. Good job.” Cliff held up his hand for a high five that Sera didn’t return.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sera replied, and all the woman in the room looked at her in confusion. She was usually willing to share details, even just a few.
“Someone special, then?” Harper was the first to ask. She was always the pushiest.
“I just don’t want to talk about it yet. It only happened yesterday.” She was sure she would never want to share details about her time with Harrison with her daughters. It was too special for that.
“Are you going to see him again?” Lucy’s eyes sought out her sisters as she dared ask.
“No, it was just a one-night thing.”
“One day and a night thing; you could have stayed. We’re here for the girls all day. Or someone should be. We have an event tonight.”
“I want to spend the day with them. I promised a movie day today before I left yesterday. Disney princesses and teen love all day for me,” Sera assured them as she stood up from her stool.
“With that, I’m out,” Cliff said with a wave to everyone, not even a backwards glance for the woman who shared her bed with him overnight, or at least part of the night. Who knew when Lucy actually got up to start prepping.
Sera watched him go and asked not for the first time, “What is up with you and Cliff?”
Lucy finally looked up from her chopping and looked around the room at everyone looking at her. “He’s my best friend, and his roommate has no respect for communal spaces and has his chick over all the time. Even I’ve seen them naked, and I’m barely over there.”
“Mom wants to know if you two are fucking,” Harper said as she waved a spatula at Lucy.
Since day one, Harper had an in-your-face, take-no-prisoners attitude. Being the oldest of the group of wild kids, she often took charge—and still did, if you asked her.
“No, we’re not. I don’t think of him like that. We are just friends.” Lucy gave a little shake at the image in her head, which was the same reaction Sera would have about sleeping with the man. It just wasn’t going to happen. But then again, Lucy hung out with him nearly every day or night, usually.
“But he sleeps with you?” Sera asked.
“Sleeps. Not anything else.” Lucy didn’t seem to notice that it was weird.
“Okay,” Sera said, letting it go for another day. Lucy had no reason to lie to her; sex was allowed in the house. He seemed to be an okay guy but also didn’t seem all that into Lucy either—that was what worried Sera the most. Lucy deserved someone who was completely into her, though Lucy’s track record wasn’t great. All the men she dated treated her like garbage, and she took it.
Heading upstairs for a shower, she tiptoed past Buzz, who was sleeping in Sera’s bed. Since the house was one room short, she typically slept on the couch, but if someone was going to be out all night, Buzz took their bed. Apparently, that meant Sera’s last night.
It had been two years since Buzz’s last relationship had fizzled, and she had moved back in. But every time she started planning on moving the little girls together, one of the older girls would meet someone. There would be talk of moving out for a while, but then nothing. The relationship was over.
Not that Buzz ever complained about bed-hopping, which actually was a lie. She complained all the time, but not enough to move out, which meant she was okay with it, right?
After her shower, the redhead was up and gone, giving Sera her room back to herself, leaving her alone as she tried not to let ending whatever happened with Harrison yesterday upset her. It was better to be done with him now before it lasted a few weeks, and he dumped her like he did with everyone else since his divorce. She didn’t want to be the next on that list.
Downstairs, all the girls were up and eating breakfast as Harper and Lucy continued to work. Emma was eating cereal and ignored her mom, who gave her an unreturned hug. Violet, on the other hand, was all in on the hug and chatted to her mom about what she had done the day before. Neither mentioned that she hadn’t been there the day before.
Once breakfast was over, she settled in with the girls for a movie day. With Violet right beside her, they started the first princess movie on the list as Emma rolled her eyes. But soon they were all into the action, and Buzz and Agatha joined them.
Kissing the top of Violet’s hair that was so much like her father’s, Sera felt the need to tell him about the children he fathered. He was missing everything they did, and every day, he missed a little more. It wasn’t even the big things; it was just Emma telling the princess not to trust the bad guy or Violet’s little body pressed to hers. He was missing it all.
