Halftime Husband (Sassy in the City 5)

“What are you doing? Get out of my fucking drawers, dude.”

He held up condoms. “Safe sex. Good for you. And you know my thoughts on your future. Give the dice a roll with the nanny. Maybe it’s the real deal.”

“You know why. If it fails, it will devastate the girls. They can’t know.”

Carson pointed to a pair of Dakota’s shoes that were lying next to the bed. Shoes I hadn’t even noticed. “I feel like it’s one hundred percent possible the girls already know. I see at least four things in this room that indicate Dakota’s living in it.” He pointed. “Shoes.” He swiped something off the chest of drawers. “Hair tie.” He gestured to the bed. “A clear delineation between the two sets of pillows. A single man sleeps in the middle.” He picked up a water bottle and slapped it back down. “Water on the opposite side of the bed from your phone charger, which is clearly plugged into the wall over there. Floral hand lotion next to water bottle. That’s actually five items, I stand corrected.”

“Shut up, Sherlock Holmes. They don’t know.” I sipped my bourbon. I sounded more confident than I felt. I couldn’t guarantee they didn’t know. Or at least have an inkling we had feelings for each other. Carson’s theory wasn’t improbable. I hadn’t realized there was evidence of Dakota in my room. “Half that stuff can be explained away.”

“Try me.”

“The hair tie could belong to the girls. Water bottle and lotion I set there on my way walking from the bathroom. Pillows are because I like a nicely made bed. Boom.”

“Don’t say ‘boom.’ What about the shoes?”

“That one I don’t know.” Then again, even if they saw the shoes

, they thought I was too old for Dakota. “They think she’s too cool to date me.”

“Well, there is truth in that,” Carson said.

“This is a lot of fun. I’m glad I invited you fuckers over.” I finished my bourbon and pointed to the door. “Get out of my room and let’s go to the bar.”

“I want the hottest pink you have,” Willow said to the nail technician. “Please.”

“I want yellow,” Poppy said.

I was studying the nail color samples, flipping through all the options at the uptown salon Brandon had booked for this birthday outing for Willow. My nails were useless nubs, so I was getting a full acrylic set that might last a week if I was lucky. I was hard on nails when I did my workouts. My mood was red hot. I didn’t want fall colors like navy and olive. I wanted cherry red.

While I was perusing nail colors, I got a text from my agent. Willow and Poppy were talking so I looked at the text.

Got a job offer for you. On the road, six weeks, backup dancer.

My heart started to race. Finally. A job. A real job.

For who?

Sneak. Said he had someone bail and he thought of you.

That was amazing. I didn’t care that we had dated. It really didn’t mean anything at this point. I took a huge sip of the champagne the receptionist had given me. Willow and Poppy had sparkling wine. Reaching out to Sneak for Willow’s video had probably put me back into his thoughts and had landed me this job. That was ironic.

When?

Starts next week.

Oh, shit. Because nothing could ever be easy. How could I leave Brandon and the girls on such short notice? I glanced over at the girls giggling and chattering away. How could I leave them at all?

I loved Brandon.

I loved the girls too.

But I didn’t have a choice. Not really.

We had agreed our arrangement was temporary, and when Brandon had brought it up in bed, his conclusion had been we couldn’t date. That left us exactly where we were—it was temporary until I got a job.

Now I’d gotten a job.

He’d never even once hinted at having feelings for me that went beyond affection and attraction. It was almost like we were friends with very regular benefits.