Page 6 of Wicked & Wildflower

God, he was gorgeous, though.

Thick arms, corded muscles, andall those tattoos. He’s exactly my type, and fuck, if I didn’t cling to his body like a bear on a tree branch.

“You could’ve woken me up, you know?” A voice pulls me from my daydreams, startling me in the darkness.

“Fuck, Monica.” My hands fly to my chest. “You scared me.”

Leo’s mother stands in the doorway leading from the living room, smiling sleepily. When I got home from my date, Lou was already in bed and Monica had fallen asleep on the couch. I didn’t want to disturb her, so I began stress-baking brownies instead.

“I didn’t want to bother you. I figured you’d get up at some point.”

She smiles at me. “How’d the date go?”

I wince. “I’m not sure there will be a second.”

Monica frowns before letting out an exasperated sigh. “Yeah, Colin’s a bit of a dud. I’ll admit I knew that going in, but I thought it was a good way for you to at least dip your toes into the Pacific Shores dating pool.”

“Well,” I draw, “I think I definitely got what I needed out of it.”

She flicks a manicured, dark eyebrow at me but thankfully doesn’t push for further explanation. Yawning, she putters into the kitchen and begins putting dishes in the sink. “Lucy went to bed around nine-thirty.”

Lucy.Child of many nicknames, my daughter is. With a birth name like Lucille, it’s bound to happen. My parents have always called her by her full name. I began calling her Lou when she was a baby because I thought she kind of looked like an old man. Plus, my mom hated the nickname. Darby will sometimes callher Lulu, which Leo has picked up too. Monica, however, has taken a liking to Lucy.

“Are you throwing a party I wasn’t aware of?” she asks, cataloging the disaster of a kitchen.

“No. I just bake when I can’t sleep, I guess.” I shrug.

Monica chuffs. “I told Lou you were meeting a new friend, by the way. So expect her to ask about it tomorrow. She was very interested to know who you’re becoming friends with since, according to her, you don’t have any.”

I snort. “She’s nothing if not honest.”

I don’t tell her I’m dating because I don’t want her getting her hopes up that I’m going to introduce a new person into her life to fill the void her dad left, only for it not to work out and have her be abandoned again.

And if there is anything I’m certain of, it’s that my flings never work out.

So, they never meet my daughter.

“You don’t need to help clean up,” I say. “It’s late.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Monica waves her hand at me as she flutters around the kitchen. “I’m a night owl, and I’ve been meaning to reorganize here anyway. I mean, who puts Tupperware in the cabinets? It needs to go in a drawer. It’s all a mess.”

I smile. Darby’s going to hate coming home to find her kitchen completely restructured. But it’s her mother-in-law, not mine.

“I don’t want you to clean up my messes, Monica.”

“Cleaning up for my kids is my favorite thing. Reminds me that I’m a mother.” She doesn’t look at me as she says it, as if the words flow from her mouth so naturally, she doesn’t think twice about them. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by it, knowing the way she’d taken Leo in when he was twelve after his mother died and his father left.

It’s in her D.N.A. She doesn’t need to have known me for years to care about me.

But it’s something so foreign to me, I can’t help but take a step back as it processes.

“Thank you.”

She looks up and smiles at me, knowing the words go far beyond her offer to clean the kitchen. “Once you actually bake these brownies, you can repay me with a fair share of them.”

“Obviously,” I chuckle.

“Maybe you could take them down to the offices on Monday and introduce yourself to the staff there. I know you’ve got a few weeks before you start, but it might be nice to familiarize yourself with the space and get to know everyone.You can meet Everett too.”

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