with Mike’s hushed words. “She’s asleep.” He didn’t sound too far off from lazy land himself. I couldn’t talk to him about this, no way.

“Can you have her call me when she gets up?”

“Sure thing.” He paused, and I was sure he yawned. “Anything I can help with?”

I was tempted, but only for a second, before telling him no and ending the call quickly.

For the next hour and a half, I busied myself with more unnecessary cleaning, but it never failed; every five minutes, I would pause to stare at the flowers. They truly were beautiful.

After I’d taken all I could take, I caved and called my mother.

Big mistake. Huge. If I thought Grace was a romance fanatic, my mother was a hundred times worse. Landon had a lover in my momma the minute per her request I snapped a photo of the arrangement and sent it to her phone.

She was hopeless. She said any man who took the time to send an arrangement like that just to prove he was a good man was in fact a good man.

And I was no closer to figuring out what his motive could be. Not when the voice of reason was being drowned by those who wanted to romanticize it all.

Chapter Eight

Landon

“Flowers?”

I arched my brow at Mike and waited for him to continue. Though I already knew what he was referring to, I pretending to have no clue.

“You frazzled her even more, you know.” He lifted his ball cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead before setting it back in place. “She went through the entire chain of women in the family trying to get their opinions on your motive.”

“No motive.” So that was a lie. “What’s the verdict? Am I still an ass?”

“It’s about fifty-fifty.” He said this with a laugh. “Half of them think you feel sorry for her and are trying to ease the tension because you know that you’ll have to face her since you’re both in the wedding party at Rhett and AJ’s wedding. The other half think you have to be an all right guy if you went to so much trouble.”

“Are you fucking with me?”

Mike cast out his line and relaxed back in the chair at my side. With a shrug, I knew he was letting me stew on his words purposely. “Why would I feel sorry for her?”

“Because you embarrassed the hell out of her and now you can’t get out of that hole.”

“So, what, I should have taken her home and taken advantage of her drunken state?”

This managed to get a rise out of him when I got a glare I was oh too familiar with.

“Exactly, which is why I called a cab instead.”

“You could have done that without calling her a kid. That left a mark for sure.”

“I never once called her a kid.” This shit was getting old. “She was loaded, Mike. I’m talking falling over her own two feet, slurring her words. She insisted that I couldn’t handle her and I was intimidated by that. Insisted that if we were behind closed doors—” I shook my head, remembering how hard it was not to take her up on the offer. I am a man, and Chloe’s attractive. Okay, fine, she was more than attractive. She was beautiful and alluring. She had this innocent way about her, her eyes, those lips.

“That doesn’t sound like Chloe.”

“Exactly.” I wasn’t the kind of guy that did shit like that. I liked the woman I was with to consciously remember the event. I’d had one night stands, I wasn’t a punk, but I refused to have sex with a woman that wouldn’t remember it the next day. “Nowhere in the span of that night did I ever refer to her as a kid.”

I started to run through every second of the conversation, every little tease and taunt she threw my way and my replies. There truly wasn’t much I said, except— “Wait.”

“Remember now?” Mike chuckled like he’d just witnessed a realization, but it wasn’t what he thought.

“Kitten.” I whispered the word and let out an exasperated breath. “I called her kitten. But to an inebriated female, that could very well sound like kid.”

All this time, all these fucking months she’d been hanging on the wrong damn word.

“Looks like you have some explaining to do.”

“And I suppose you aren’t gonna offer me an ounce of help?” He chuckled, and I already knew the answer.

“I think I’d rather be a silent observer. It’ll be entertaining to watch you work your way through this mess.” Dick. “I agree with Rhett. I like to watch you squirm.”

***

“Slow night.” I opened my eyes and looked to my left just as Will sat down on the couch beside me. “Rachel’s been sending me videos of Harlow all night.” He held out his phone, and I looked down. “She’s learned the word no.” Just then, his daughter filled the screen as she slapped her hands on her highchair tray, screaming no over and over before giggling happily.

“I think I’m gonna have my hands full with this one for sure.”

Blonde bouncing curls swung around her chubby little face. A smile so big, showing off her toothless smile. She was adorable.

Then I heard the sound of his wife in the background as she repeated the word no in between each chant of their daughter’s.

“Nothing like it, ya know.” The video ended, and I watched as Will held the phone closer, looking down at the still image of his little girl. “Being a dad, it’s unexplainable, the most amazing feeling I’ve ever had.”

I wanted that life, the wife and the kids. I wanted to experience the happiness of having a family to go home to.

“Layne,” I heard my name being

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