“And he’s inside right now.” He wasn’t alone, though. I stepped inside the house after spending too much time daydreaming in the car and inhaled deeply. The place smelled incredible. “I’m home!”
“In the kitchen, Mom.” Titus sounded happy and his excited voice brought a smile to my face.
I found my two guys in the kitchen with every dish in the house laid out on the table. They both looked up with happy grins. “What’s all this?”
Titus looked at Ryan and Ryan gave him a short nod. “Taco bar! Ryan said you needed to be cheered up and you love tacos, so we made a taco bar. It’s like a sundae bar, only with tacos,” he offered by way of an explanation.
“You guys did this for me?”
They nodded, wearing almost identical smiles.
“That was very thoughtful.”
“It really was,” Ryan offered with a cheeky smile. “We’re almost done if you want to change into taco-eating clothes.”
Titus laughed. “What are taco-eating clothes?”
I stayed just long enough to hear Ryan’s answer before I made my way to change. “It’s clothes with lots of room to grow because you know what they say about tacos, you can’t eat just four. Or was it five?”
The last thing I heard was Titus giggling as he wondered how many tacos he could eat.
It would be really hard not to fall for Ryan, I realized, because in addition to being a wonderful man and an excellent lover, he was so good with Titus. He knew when to be playful or serious, and he knew exactly how to toe the line between being a friend and an authority figure.
Almost like a stepdad?
I shook off that thought. It was too soon for that kind of talk. We’d been on two dates, three if you counted lunch today. No one was thinking or talking about marriage or babies. Definitely not babies.
I rushed down the steps in an attempt to outrun my wayward thoughts, and found Ryan pouring lemonade with one hand, the phone gripped between his ear and shoulder with the other. “Yeah, I’ll be right there, Sheriff.”
I frowned. “Is everything all right?”
Ryan glanced down at Titus and shook his head. “Accident on the interstate. Local teens.”
I wanted to ask more questions but Titus was pretending not to listen, which meant he was soaking up every single word. “We’ll save you some tacos,” I told him instead.
“At least six,” he said with an easy smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Bare minimum,” I promised and took a step forward, prepared to kiss him goodbye when I realized where we were. Who was watching.
“Be back soon. I hope.” He mussed Titus’ hair and pressed a kiss to my forehead before leaving quickly.
Titus and I got busy creating our tacos one at a time, in silence, until the first taco was almost gone. “Mom, how come you and Ryan aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend?”
I blinked, wondering where the question had come from. “We’re friends. We have been since were just about your age.”
“I know,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “But he could be your boyfriend. Why isn’t he?”
I laughed and reached across the table to pinch his cheek. “I don’t know, Titus. Why do you care so much if I have a boyfriend?”
“Because.”
I arched a brow at my precocious little boy. “That is not an answer.”
“Because what if Ryan gets a girlfriend and we don’t get to see him as much anymore?”
His question made my heart clench. It was always a possibility, I knew that, but now I found it unsettling. “He’ll always make time for us, Titus. We’re family.”
“Okay,” he sighed, still unsatisfied. “I want a kid brother or sister. Rosie says she’s hoping to get a sister now that Dr. Gus and her dad are together, but I don’t care. I want a brother or a sister.”
His words couldn’t have shocked me more if he’d asked for a pet dinosaur. A sibling. My little boy wanted a brother or a sister. “Oh.”
Titus nodded, on a roll now. “And Ryan is already my dad anyway so if you have a baby together, I get Ryan and a kid brother.”
“I thought you didn’t care if it was a sister or a brother.”
“I don’t.” He shrugged. “But Rosie says you have to be in love to make a baby. You love Ryan, don’t you?”
Yes. I did love Ryan. I wasn’t sure that it was the kind of love that led to making babies, but I had a hunch it was heading in that direction. “Of course I do, he’s my best friend.”
“Then you should be his girlfriend.” Titus started making another taco as if his proclamation settled the matter, when all it did was create more doubts.
Ryan and I had to be careful, even more careful because there was too much at stake if things didn’t work out between us. We had to be sure that what was going on between us was real before we told Titus, before we went public as a couple.