The Player and the Single Mom

“What?” I panicked, slapping my coffee down so hard it sloshed over the sides and burned my hand. I stuck my skin in my mouth and sucked the coffee off of it.

Grace was a skinny brunette with dark skin and much better manners than my kids, hands down. She had been Ava’s best friend for at least five years and spent a ton of time at our house and vice versa. Grace was currently pressed against the hallway wall, standing on her tiptoes.

“I think it’s coming from the bathroom,” she said timidly.

I took a step forward quickly and my bare feet squished down into cold, wet carpet. Moisture went between my toes. “Oh God,” I said, closing my eyes briefly and swallowing hard. My stomach turned over because I had a sudden sneaking suspicion what was happening.

The bathroom door flew open and Johnny’s head popped out. “The toilet is overflowing,” he said.

Ava, Grace, and Marigold all started screaming and running away.

I sighed and pulled my phone back out of my pocket. I deleted everything I’d written in the text bubble.

I replaced it with, “Is it February yet?” and hit send.

Cash

“You’re all set, Mr. Young.”

I looked up from my recently finished breakfast to see the technician from the indoor golf company standing in the doorway. I had bought a home golf simulator and Doug, the tech, had been installing the projector and setting everything up. “That was fast, Doug.”

“It’s a pretty easy system to install and use. Do you have a minute? I’ll give you a mini tutorial to get you started.”

“Thanks, that would be great.” I shoved my chair back and stood up.

“I can wait until you’re done eating.”

I pointed to my plate. “I destroyed it. I was just nursing my coffee and reading the news.”

More accurately, nursing my coffee and thinking about Sera. Those few stolen moments together the night before had been hot as hell. The way she’d tasted, the way she’d responded to me so eagerly, had kept me up half the night, the other half dreaming about her smooth skin sliding over me, my cock buried deep inside her. I had been convinced I would wake up and find that she had sent me a text the second her eyes had opened where she was bailing on going to Mexico. That she would have woken up with a pounding head and been overcome by mom guilt and decided there was no way she could take a vacation.

Instead, when I’d gotten up at six I’d had some texts from various friends, a text from my mother, and a clearly drunken text sent at four from my youngest brother, Conway, who wished me “Happy New Year motherfucker” misspelled horribly.

I hadn’t actually drank that much the night before and I’d gotten a great night’s sleep, so I went for a ride on my favorite horse, Jennifer, worked out, showered, and cooked my breakfast. I’m a breakfast guy, so I went full western omelet, grits, hash browns, bacon, and toast. It was the only meal I liked to cook.

I’d let Doug in to set up my simulator right as I had started cooking and fifty minutes later he was done. It was when I was following him to the finished room over my garage that I had converted to a game room that I got a text from Sera.

Is it February yet?

That made me grin.

She wasn’t having second thoughts.

I texted back.

We don’t have to wait.

Shoving my phone in the pocket of my jeans, I followed Doug into the room. “Whoa. This is kick-ass.” The simulator took up a full corner of the game room floor to ceiling.

Doug went through the whole setup and I listened, but I was also listening for the ding of my phone notifying me of a text. I didn’t get one back from Sera immediately, which was disappointing. I wanted to send some sexy texts back and forth and convince her that there was a way we could see each other on the sly between now and Mexico.

As soon as I ushered Doug out with thanks, I called my buddy MacKay. “Mac, what’s up? You busy?”

“Nope.”

“Get your ass over to my house. I just had my golf simulator installed and I want to try it out with a little friendly competition.”

I played with my new toy and repeatedly checked my phone for a text that never arrived while I was waiting for Mac. Sera had no idea how much she’d gotten under my skin. But then again, she probably had no idea how many nights since I’d first met her in November I had spent picturing her in my bed. She’d probably take off running if she knew how much I wanted to fuck her.

Mac showed up and let himself into the house. I had gates at the front of the property that required I buzz in cars, so I tended to leave the front door unlocked when I was having people over. I loved being able to lock and unlock doors on my phone given the size of the house and the property.

In the game room, I texted to him.

I was taking a swing when he came in. “Whoa. That is fucking sick, man.”

I stared at the screen, impressed with how quickly my results showed up. “Grab a club. Look, it has ball flight and angle tracking measurements. How fucking cool is that?”

“I feel like I should have dressed for the course,” Mac said, sauntering over in sweatpants and a hoodie.

Golf was something that Mac really enjoyed given that a lot of sports were off the table for him since his injury.

“Right?” I said. “We’re going to need a dress code to use this thing.”

“How much did this thing set you back?”