Page 52 of Single Mom's Guide to Love

“Those are the conditions. Take it or leave it, Love.”

There it is again. The name. The name I should scold him for using.

Emphasis on should.

Why can’t I? What kind of voodoo power does this man have over me? I’m going to blame my lack of response on the whirlwind of the day.

Yes. That’s why.

“Okay. But I’m only letting you hold the ladder and hand me things,” I say. “You’re my assistant, understand?”

He gives me a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am. At your service.”

16

logan

I liketo think that I’m a self-aware person.

I’ve always been quick to realize when something is not for me. It’s why I was quick to drop sports as a child and left the athletic endeavors to my brother. It’s why I knew after two piano lessons that I was not going to have a future with performance. And it’s why within twenty minutes of being Maeve’s assistant, I realized I’m no help to her.

It started when she yelled at me for handing her the wrong size drill bit. It continued when I audibly gasped when she climbed an exceptionally tall ladder and I thought she was going to fall. Turns out the gasp scared her more than the height. The last straw was when she busted me staring at her ass instead of handing her the curtain rod. She told me to get out of her way and just let her handle things.

Maeve, mad? Rather scary. And rather sexy.

I could watch her all day. Even now, as I’m standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, holding our Chinese takeout lunch, I don’t want to move. I just want to watch her make magic.

She’s so different today. For starters, this is the first day I’ve seen her in regular clothing. She’s always looked like she wasready to jump into a business meeting with her power suits, or even her blazers and nicer blue jeans. Whether it was at the airport, or even this week when she and her crew were starting to work, she was polished and put together. Today’s look is casual—a cutoff sweatshirt and leggings that are hugging her perfect ass. Her hair is in a messy knot on the top of her head and she barely has on any makeup.

She’s even more beautiful than usual.

Or maybe today’s different because her look is paired with her focus on the project at hand. There’s a glint in her eye when she gets an idea. I noticed that her nose crinkles when she’s concentrating. Every part of her process is fascinating to watch. And I hate that I only have a few weeks of this in my home, because I could watch her forever.

Take now, for instance. Since I left to go meet the delivery driver—to whom I paid an absurd amount of money for delivery on Thanksgiving—she has turned on the music. She’s dancing to a hip hop song about shaking your ass that my generation would call old school, but I’m pretty sure if I said that to Maeve she’d pull my insides outside. For a woman who’s as tightly wound as she is, I must say, I’m impressed with her moves. Her hips are swaying to the beat as she looks for something in her tool box. And it’s taking every part of me to not drop our lunches, walk over, wrap my arms around her hips and start dancing in the middle of the room.

I won’t, because I know it will freak her out. I’ve slipped a few times and called her Love, and she hasn’t corrected me. But I know I can’t press my luck too much.

So I won’t go dance with her. I won’t pull her against me so I can feel what I felt that night all over again.

Even if it hurts not to.

Just as the show is getting good, Maeve’s moves have her spinning in a circle, and she nearly falls over herself when she spots me in the doorway.

“What the fuck, Logan!” she screams, hand over her heart. “How long have you been there?”

I push away from the door and walk into the room. “Long enough to see that you held back on me that night we danced.”

She narrows her eyes, trying intimidate me. Unfortunately, it’s not working. “It’s rude to stare. And to bring up nights that were previously agreed upon to never be talked about again.”

“Apologies,Maeve.”

“Thank you,” she says as she turns off the music. “What do we have here?”

I hold up the bags. “I promised lunch.”

“You ordered for me?”

“I did,” I say, putting the bags of Chinese food down on the table as I find a sheet that isn’t too dusty and lay it out on the floor. “I didn’t know what you liked and didn’t want to interrupt, but it’s Chinese food, which means the rule is to order some of everything.”

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