“You’re the best.” Dakota’s muffled voice sounded as though she’d covered the speaker before she spoke.
“Not a problem.” A birthday surprise was an excellent distraction. A birthday surprise was something for the boys to look forward to. A birthday surprise was the perfect redirection for their disappointment.
This wasn’t the first time she’d helped Dakota and Gavin co-parent virtually. It wouldn’t be the last, she was certain of that. Gavin was not a hands-on kind of father. Then again, he hadn’t really signed up to be a dad, so she did her best not to make it miserable for him.
“Bye, Rach.” Gavin’s voice sounded like an echo, since Dakota still had the phone.
“Bye,” Rachel said, thumbing the off button.
Rachel liked Dakota. She liked Gavin, too. It wasn’t his fault they’d based their marriage on one night of mediocre passion that led to their boys.
It wasn’t hers, either.
It just…was.
Molly was still making gagging faces in between cookie bites. She didn’t understand this part of things.
Gavin and Rachel had tried. Tried-ish.
But, despite his mother’s proclivity to shoving them together, guilting them together, and offering to pay Rachel to ensure they stayed together, their marriage was as dull as their kitchen knives.
Let’s just say, if their marriage were an entrée, it had no seasoning at all.
No one really understood what had happened on that one night eight years ago that had changed their lives. The night she hand-selected Gavin from a group of guys for her first ever supposed-to-be one-night stand.
The evening had resulted in one of them climaxing. (Spoiler alert, it wasn’t Rachel.) He’d called her a few times after, but she hadn’t returned his calls because that would’ve totally ruined the point of having a one-night-only curtain call.
Then—and oh boy, was it a big then—were the words, “Congrats, it’s twins.”
That part did not suck, because Rachel loved the hell out of her boys.
Besides the children, she and Gavin had shared a marriage that lasted a few months before they both came to their senses and recognized they made much better co-parenting friends and partners than co-parenting spouses who slept across the hall, because he snored like a freaking freight train on fire and she, so he told her, hogged all the blankets.
They were excellent…friends. Friends who had two kids together and eventually lived separate lives because it was just more comfortable for everyone.
“What did they want?” Molly asked, the dislike of Gavin apparent in her tone.
“Long story.” Rachel grabbed the keys on her way to the door. “I’ll fill you in on the way.”
Where Rachel and Gavin got along fine, he and Molly despised each other. Which Rachel didn’t understand.
“He’s not coming to the game,” Molly correctly guessed.
Phone stuffed into her pocket, Rachel flicked on the slow cooker so dinner would be ready when they arrived home. She tossed the extra cookie in a zip-top bag so it would be safe in her purse—once her boys discovered she kept tampons in the interior pocket, they avoided the thing at all costs.
“I guess that means Travis will attend instead,” Molly mused.
She had been working to convince Rachel to practice her flirting skills with Travis Frank for the past four months.
The idea was so far beyond ridiculous, so off the beaten path that it didn’t even show up on Google Maps.
But flirting was Molly’s job, so she looked for opportunities everywhere. Rachel didn’t blame her because Molly literally taught the basics of dating and had to keep her skills sharp for her clients. She used her inability to take no for an answer and her MyTube channel to teach others the intricacies.
“Dave might come,” Rachel said, hoping it was Dave who would attend. Gavin had two brothers. She got along fabulously with Dave. Not so much with Travis.
For a lengthy list of reasons substantially longer than Molly’s meddling.
“It’ll be Travis,” Molly said, a small, knowing smile teasing the edges of her hot-pink-painted lips.
“Probably.” It usually was Travis who filled in when Gavin couldn’t make it. Rachel started the mental prep work for dealing with him. “Do not start up about him again.”
Molly bit at her bottom lip, apparently refusing to respond.
Rachel could literally feel her matchmaking friend brewing an idea to push Rachel and Travis together. Last time he’d been to a game, Molly manipulated them into sitting thigh-to-thigh on the bleachers. The time before that? Her car broke down and she asked Travis to drive them home. Then Molly caught a ride with the umpire’s wife instead.
Oh, to be sure, Molly didn’t believe Rachel and Travis had any business being together. She just wanted to piss off Gavin.
It was her way.
“I like Travis.” Molly bit at her bottom lip, saying the words with the caution of one merging onto a road littered with construction. “I like it when he comes to the games.”
When Gavin couldn’t make a game, one of his immediate family members always showed up to—and she was quoting him here—“represent the family.”
Like they were mafiosos or something.
They weren’t.
They were, however, loaded beyond belief because Great-Meemaw Frank had created the first Puffle Yum and sold the shit out of the toaster tarts.
Rachel paused, setting the purse strap onto her shoulder. “Travis is a fantastic uncle.”
She made it a point to enunciate that last word. Because any idea of flirting with Travis or doing anything beyond friendly chatter with him was an absolute nopers.
“Is that new?” Molly gestured to Rachel’s bag. She may have been a black belt in flirting, but her distraction techniques could use some work.
Rachel knew how Molly operated and, in her mind, as long as she didn’t verbally commit, she would weasel her way out of an implied agreement later.
“I grabbed it at the Coach outlet in Loveland last week,” Rachel said. The rose-colored over-the-shoulder bag was the last on the shelf, and Rachel had fallen in deep lust with it on first sight.
“I think I need at least two of these,” Molly mumbled, examining the stitching.
“Too bad, I got the last one.” Rachel grinned, nabbing the bag away with a smirk.
Molly shook her head. “There are always more online.”
“Dinner’s cooking, I have my keys, shoes, purse, go bag, sunglasses, boys are going straight to the field after school.” Rachel inventoried everything she needed for the game.
“You ready now?” Molly asked.
“Let’s go.” Rachel dropped her sunglasses into her bag and held the front door for her friend.
This week was Molly’s turn to drive.
Which meant Molly would be busy driving the vehicle and Rachel would spend the thirty-minute drive to the baseball field calling Cassie back and then chatting about everything but her least favorite Frank brother. So perhaps, just perhaps, Molly would leave it alone.
Maybe.
Chapter Two
“You know you’re a good mom when you sacrifice your vibrator batteries for your kid’s toy.” — All Moms Everywhere
Rachel
Rachel had her resting mom face firmly in place. The one she’d learned from her mama, and her mother had learned from hers. The one that showed just the correct amount of interest but covered the fact that she wasn’t 100 percent listening.
The late-spring sun pelted them with rays while they entered the baseball field. Thanks to Molly’s extra-fancy, extra-fast driving, they’d arrived with a few minutes to spare.
“I’m telling you.” Molly led the way along the walkway toward the bench where they would wait for the Little League game to start. “Men who shop for
groceries are excellent stepdad material.”
Wait. What?
That was not the criteria single moms should use as the litmus test for future husbands.
Dear future husband, please be funny, be excellent in bed, take care of me and my kids, and above all else, pick out the best watermelons.
No.
As Sesame Street once pointed out, one of these things is not like the others.
Besides, guys rarely enjoyed grocery shopping. At least, in Rachel’s experience, that was a no-go. Not that she had an abundance of experience with grocery shopping members of the male species, but she had enough secondhand experience people watching to know that the handsome ones were in and out and on their way.
In and out of the grocery store, that is. Other things, too, but that wasn’t a place she wanted to allow her mind to wander, because her body hadn’t wandered there in years, and she was pretty sure it was resenting her and would turn Team Molly on this one.
“The produce section is ripe for all sorts of subliminal messages, all ready for you to exploit.” Molly did the bouncy walk that was her signature. Molly walked like she lived—happy and always moving.
Rachel’s walk was more just-get-me-where-I’m-going efficiency.
“Whatever you say,” Rachel said. This reply was all-purpose and evergreen.
“You show you are confident in the way you push the cart,” Molly continued. “Show that you understand how to select and handle an eggplant. Things like that.”
This whole thing was a no for Rachel, thank-you-very-much. But Molly could do whatever Molly wanted—which was good because Molly did that anyway.
“Whatever you say,” Rachel said, again.
“Well, I say that you and I are going produce shopping later.” Molly bumped Rachel’s arm with hers.
Rachel slid her gaze to Molly. Ha. No. “I’m not doing that with you. Not when you’re in dating-Molly mode.”
“You haven’t been listening at all, have you?” Molly tsked. “I’m in dating-Rachel mode.”
Rachel stiffened. She appreciated she had someone to hang out with at the games. Especially when that someone was her bestest best friend. Even if that friend was filled to the brim with ridiculous ideas about the dating Rachel should do, and the calisthenics her downtown lady bits should take part in with members of the opposite sex.
“A guy in the produce aisle is not in the headspace for becoming an insta-dad,” Rachel insisted, looking to where her boys warmed up on the field. “He’s there to select lemons or broccoli or whatever, not pick out a future life partner.”
“Orrrr…” Molly stopped mid-stride, turned her body toward Rachel. “Maybe he’s there to squeeze a few oranges while watching potential mates stroke zucchinis to test for firmness. Thus discovering the future mother of his children.” Molly waggled her eyebrows, as though all of this made sense and wasn’t whack-a-doodle.
For the record, it made little sense and was, in fact, totally whack-a-doodle.
“I refuse to meet a man by subliminally encouraging him to ask me on a date because I stroked a banana or a zucchini or any other girthy produce.” Rachel rummaged through her handbag to search for her sunglasses as they walked. Damn, she knew she’d dropped them in there before she left the house.
“It’s not happening. If I need company, I’ll just adopt a puppy or something,” she continued. Coming up empty from the inside pocket, she turned her attention to the oversize beach bag, the one that had never seen a beach but was her own personal “bug out” bag where she kept all the things she might need for herself or her kids.
“If you don’t want to be so obvious, just squeeze a couple of cantaloupes.” Molly shrugged, clearly oblivious to Rachel’s search for eye protection and her extreme disinterest in the suggestion.
“Are you equating cantaloupe to breasts, because men like breasts?” Rachel asked, even though she knew she shouldn’t have continued engaging in Molly’s dating cray-cray.
“See! You’re catching on.” Molly nodded enthusiastically.
Rachel shook her head. She would not be doing that.
“If you use two lemons, it’s a totally different subliminal message.”
“For guys who like small breasts?” Stop. Asking. Questions. Rachel.
“No, silly. Guys love having their”—Molly tipped her sunglasses to the edge of her nose and looked pointedly at Rachel’s crotch area—“ahem squeezed.”
Molly further illustrated this point by making two fists and squeezing.
Rachel didn’t have the equipment Molly referred to, but she still felt the urge to cross her legs. See, when life tossed lemons at Rachel, she found a recipe on Pinterest and squeezed a pitcher of lemon martinis for an impromptu girls’ night soiree. Sometimes, if she was feeling bold with her lemons, she’d mix up a pitcher of whiskey smash instead. She didn’t squeeze them to make a sexual point.
Rachel twisted her lips, paused her stride, and shook her head. “We’re done. Change of subject.”
Then she stuck her head back into the depths of the beach bag filled with snacks and extra gear and just-in-case bandages and water bottles. Where the heck had she put those damn glasses? Gah.
“Good call, Rach. Because that’s the worst advice I’ve ever heard.” A throaty male voice with a hefty dose of southern drawl came from behind them.
Rachel paused. She knew that voice like the inside of her handbag.
Don’t get her wrong. The southern accent was nice. Sometimes if he said the right thing with extra southern mixed in, it made her tingly and her tummy twist in ways that weren’t bad. Not bad at all. Actually, the twisting was sorta good. Which was bad.
Blurgh.
Of course, it would be Travis.
“Don’t go around squeezing a guy’s nuts. We don’t like that.” Travis knew where his sunglasses were because he pulled them from the bridge of his nose, folded them carefully, and tucked one end into the front of his shirt.
If he kept up that look, pretty soon he’d be wearing loafers with no socks. He could probably pull off the look, though, and still knock all the ladies out with his brand of handsome.
Travis was a hottie. The worst kind of hottie—the kind who knew it, embraced it, and owned it. He was also untethered, immature, and irresponsible.
Short black hair with a bit of an unintentional Superman-esque wave, muscles because he embraced his hotness, worked out, and apparently didn’t eat Puffle Yums, and the kind of symmetrical features that probably turned on even facial recognition software. Yes, the symmetry of his face was that good.
Rachel did not like Travis’s brand of hottie knowledge, preferring the kind who had no clue they were attractive. They were so much nicer to her.
Rachel ignored him, shoving her face back into her bag on her sunglasses search.
She didn’t have to look up to see him shaking his head; she knew intuitively that’s what he was doing. Probably closing his eyes in a half-lidded what-the-fuck, this-is-ridiculous eye roll he did so well.
“Some of you do.” Molly laughed, lighthearted, the subtle hint of flirt in her tone that Travis ate up. “Like the squeeze thing, I mean.”
Travis laughed. “Rach, you know how you say I never take anything seriously?”
Yes, she did.
“I take my stance here extremely seriously.” He gave her a smolder and a wink that made her nearly—only nearly—forget who he was, where they were, and why he was a bad idea.
Between him and Molly, it was like a big ol’ flirt bomb had decimated the Little League field.
Molly was dancing the dance to hand deliver Travis right to Rachel.
Which was…blah.
Of course, Molly wouldn’t try for Travis herself. Rachel had suggested it, but Molly said that would be, and Rachel was quoting here, “weird.”
Rachel mentall
y batted Travis away like the unreliable annoyance he had proven over and over to be.
“Tell Rachel and me more about what you’d prefer squeezed,” Molly said, right on cue.
Rachel extracted her head from her bag, wishing that Molly had not just asked that. But, oh boy, she had. “Or you could, you know, not do that.”
Travis grinned. “I’d love to tell you what to squeeze.”
“I just said not to.”
“But did you mean it?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“Travis.” She turned to face him, squaring her shoulders.
“Yes, Rachel?” he drawled.
“Knock it off.” She used her mom tone. The one that, generally, got her what she wanted.
Molly smiled. “You two, this is great.”
Rachel scowled. She gave up on her sunglasses search and went back to marching toward the benches.
Molly let well-timed laughter tumble over the thick air among them. “What would you suggest, then?”
“I suggest we go be adults and watch the baseball warm-ups,” Rachel said. Fine, it was more of a huff.
Travis stood, thoughtful. Too thoughtful.
Travis didn’t do thoughtful. This was new.
“There are so many other things you can do down there—don’t go squeezing around. Do you want me to start a list of things men enjoy?” he said to Rachel with another hefty dose of charisma.
Rachel’s stomach did the flippy good, but also bad, thing. “I know what men enjoy.”
She didn’t, not really. But she could probably make a few good guesses.
“I’d love to hear what you think Travis would enjoy,” Molly said.
“I can start at the waistband and work my way down?” Travis continued.
Gah. This, right there, was why Travis drove her up the wall.
“I think I’ll stick with the squeezing thing Molly suggested.” Truly, Rachel just wanted him to stop talking about it. “Hard. With fingernails.”
Did she imagine it or did he cross his legs just a touch?
Rachel, Out of Office Page 2
