Page 21 of Only One I Ever Wanted

“Wonderful!”

“Throttle back, matchmaker. It’s just dinner.” We walked up the steps to my back porch.

“I know. I’m looking forward to hearing all about Los Angeles. And why she’s single.”

“Ma,” I warned.

“What? I just want to get to know her again.” She patted my arm. “But what else do you need my help with?”

“Getting my brothers to come home. I think I’m going to need their help.” We got up to the top and she threw her arms around me. “Oh, I’ll have all my boys' home!”

I patted her back. “If you can get them here. This crazy video has me with more work than I can handle alone. Even if half of them are for thirst traps.”

She gave a delighted laugh. “You know Cash is more than happy to be shirtless all day long.”

I sighed. “I’ll have to convince him to stop at the shirt.”

She set me back. “I’ll start gathering my boys. You get cleaned up.” She patted my cheek and headed back down the stairs.

I pulled out my phone as I headed to the bathroom.

Cash: Do we get dollar bills in our pants too?

Kai: I always wanted to be a dancer.

Gus: With what rhythm?

Rip:

Me: I think the Murdock Brothers needs all the brothers.

Cam: Not it. I’m in Daytona.

Me: Get your ass to NY

Rip: Florida? On purpose?

Cam: A job is a job. I’m roofing.

Me: It’s one million degrees in FL

Cam: And the girls are all in bikinis. I’m good.

Guess I’d need my mom to definitely work on Cam. The text conversation went into overdrive as my brothers continued to spiral with the stripper topic.

I wish I’d never taken my damn shirt off.

Then again, I did wish for more jobs. And now I had more than I could handle in a month.

By the time I was out of the shower and dressed, the chat had devolved into baseball scores and NBA brackets for the upcoming playoffs.

I skimmed the texts and pocketed my phone on my way out the back door.

It was almost an hour before Nora would show up, but it gave me some time to reply to a few messages from the booking app. My face felt as if it was on fire by the time I got through a dozen of the jobs. Most of them were women—also a handful of men—all with colorful notes added to the job.

I checked over the railing of my deck to find Danny flat on his back, with a snoozing Trouble draped over his stomach. He looked happy. There were more and more moments of it, of course, but that was the first time he’d looked so carefree. And without his Switch was definitely a plus.

I headed down the stairs to where they were and dropped onto the ground beside them.

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