Page 48 of Flirting With My Brother's Billionaire Best Friend

“Yeah!”

Hayden and I set up the tent together, and Jenni sets up hers across from ours.

“Why can’t Jenni sleep with us?” Hayden asks me.

“Well, she’s a girl. She has to sleep in the girl tent.”

“I thought you said Jenni was your girlfriend.”

“She is.”

“My mom sleeps in bed with her different boyfriends all the time. Or at least she used to. She hasn’t had a boyfriend in a long time. I think it’s because she’s sick.”

I meet Jenni’s gaze. She presses her lips together but doesn’t say anything.

“Well, Jenni and I do things differently, and that’s okay. Everyone does things their own way.”

Hayden seems to accept this, and we move on to staking the tent into the ground.

Once the tents are up, Hayden looks over at me. “Now what?”

I grin. “It will be dark soon. How about we get a campfire started? I have hot dogs and marshmallows we can roast over the fire.”

Hayden jumps up and down. “Yes, yes, yes!” It warms my heart to see him having fun. He’s been through a lot. With Amanda cycling through who knows how many guys, it had to be hard on him. And it’s only gotten harder since her diagnosis, I’m sure.

“First, we need to gather the wood,” Jenni says. There’s a pile of logs that we keep stowed near the campsite, but we still need smaller sticks for kindling.

I show Hayden the sizes of sticks we need, and he happily sets off, collecting them.

“He loves this,” Jenni says with her eyes on him.

“Maybe we can get him in Cub Scouts or something,” I suggest. “Or at least some sort of summer camp.”

Jenni gives a soft laugh. “We?”

My face heats up. “Well, er… I just said that, huh? I guess I’m thinking of a future for us already. This feels real to me, Jenni.”

“I know what you mean. It feels reals to me too.”

Hearing Jenni say that sends fireworks exploding inside me. I want to take her in my arms and kiss her until her toes curl.

Jenni clears her throat. “Do you even know what kind of extracurriculars he’s tried?”

I shake my head. “There’s still so much about him I don’t know.”

“Well, he told me he loves animals and wants to be a vet one day,” Jenni says.

“Maybe we can take him to visit the pet shelter or something.”

Hayden bends to get a stick that’s about five feet long.

“That one might be a little big for our fire.” I cross the campsite to where he’s struggling with the unruly branch.

“We can chop it up with an axe,” Hayden says.

“I’m afraid I’m fresh out of axes.” And Amanda wouldn’t be too happy about me giving her kid sharp, dangerous objects anyway. “But I have an idea.” I prop it up against a fallen tree. “Come jump on this, Hayden.”

He’s more than happy to oblige. He pounces on the poor branch until it’s broken in lots of small pieces. “How ‘bout them apples?” he exclaims.

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