Play Me (Take a Chance 3)

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.” She finally turned to him. “I really mean it. For everything. You’ve made this whole situation so much easier than it might have been. If not for you…I’d be lost.”

His heart raced. “If you get lost, I’ll just have to find you.”

“You know what?” She dropped his hand and headed for the door. When she reached the hallway, she turned back to him, her face open and vulnerable. “I think I might actually believe you.”

She went to her bedroom, and he stood there staring after her. His sign had come to him tonight. He was where he belonged. Where Kiersten needed him.

And she didn’t want him to leave.

Chapter Ten

“Chris, did you finish your math homework?” Kiersten called out, drying her hands on a dishrag. Tossing the dirty cloth in a basket, she headed into the dining room where Chris always did his homework. “Just because your teacher lives with us now doesn’t mean you don’t have to study.”

“I know,” he said.

“See here?” Garrett pointed at the paper Chris was bent over. “This is where you went wrong. Remember in class how we talked about variables?”

Chris let out a frustrated breath. “Yeah…”

“Well, you missed one completely. Look again,” Garrett urged.

Chris nibbled on the end of his pencil, eyebrows furrowed. Garrett waited patiently, the picture perfect example of a loving father—except he wasn’t his father. Hell, she wasn’t even his mother.

Chris had adjusted to having Garrett around quite quickly. It became obvious to her that Chris had hungered for a father figure more than he’d let on. Garrett had given Chris what she hadn’t even known Chris had been missing. Yet another thing for her to admire about him. The list kept getting longer and longer.

She sat down on the other side of Chris and studied the problem he worked on.

Yep, gibberish.

“Wait, I think I see it,” Chris said, pointing at the paper and then glancing at Garrett. “Here, right? It should be a six.”

“Excellent,” Garrett said, slapping Chris on the back. “Great job.”

Chris didn’t even crack a smile. “Yeah. I get it now. You can go back to whatever you were doing before. I’m done now, I think.”

“I’ll be over here doing the dishes if you see anything else wrong.”

“All right.” Chris finished the problem and leaned back in his chair, shooting both of them an oddly adult-like look. “So, do I get to call you Garrett at school now? Since you’re basically my stepdad?”

“No.” Garrett grinned. “But nice try.”

“Why don’t you two share a room? Or become a real couple? I mean, you must’ve liked each other enough to, well, ya know.” His lips pursed. “I don’t get it. Why lie?”

Kiersten almost fell off the stool. Hello, subject change. “Uh…”

“We’re not that kind of couple,” Garrett said. “That’s all. We’re better off as friends.”

“But why? You’re having a baby. Living here. But in different rooms?” Chris studied them both, his nose crinkled up. “It’s even weirder than Modern Family. What will my friends say if they found out? What if they come over and see you two in different rooms? It’s weird.”

Kiersten looked at Garrett with a sense of panic creeping up her spine. “It might be weird, but it’s who we are now.”

“I won’t be shocked if you at least share a room. I am thirteen, you know,” Chris said. “I’d prefer normal to…this.”

“Well, we’re not together, so we can’t,” Kiersten explained, smoothing her hair. It was the first time she had seen her commitment issues through Chris’s eye, and the experience was unsettling. “We’re going to live together and raise the baby together, but we’re not a couple.”

Garrett nodded. “We’re excellent friends, so we’re making it work this way.”