The kids spend the rest of the afternoon jumping on the trampoline in the yard, coming in for dinner sweaty and askew. Once they’re showered and tucked into bed, I find Jules in

the kitchen, surveying the mess with her hands on her hips. “They get down okay?” she asks, glancing over at me.

“Um, yup” I report. The truth is tonight was a disaster: Lottie will hardly speak to me, barely glancing up from her book long enough to grunt one-syllable answers to my questions, and Ezra threw a pre-bath tantrum so loud they probably heard him all the way across the river.

I’m in way over my head with these kids, and it’s obvious. To Jules—and to them, most of all. “Everybody’s in bed.”

Jules nods, eyeing me carefully. “You okay?” she asks, scooping a couple of plates off the table and carrying them over to the sink.

“Yeah, totally,” I say automatically, before letting out a sigh. “This is exhausting,” I confide. Then, off her raised eyebrows: “Not in a bad way, counselor. I just mean, like, objectively.”

I’m waiting for some kind of scolding—They’re kids, Cal; what did you expect it to be like?—but Jules just nods. “It’s totally exhausting,” she agrees, pushing her sleeves up and turning the faucet on. “I haven’t been this tired since law school.”

I picture it for a moment without entirely meaning to—twenty-two-year-old Jules in sweatpants and glasses, burning the midnight oil in the law library, a pencil shoved into all that yellow hair—but that just leads to memories of freshly-graduated Jules, propping up the bar in her illegally-hot black dress.

Nope. Danger lies in that direction, so I bring the rest of the dirty dishes over to the sink, and we work in companionable silence for a few minutes, Jules rinsing plates before handing them to me to set in the dishwasher.

See? Nothing sexy about dirty dishes.

“Great stacking,” she says, looking surprised.

“What, you think I don’t know how to load a dishwasher?” I make a face. “I’m not completely useless.”

“Well, no,” she allows, tilting her head to the side. “Not completely.”

“Oh, you think you’re funny,” I say, reaching over to dip my fingers in the suds before flicking them in her direction.

“I am,” she says, flicking me back. “And don’t start.”

“Start what?” I ask, reaching over and splashing more. But this time, the water hits her square on, soaking her T-shirt so the thin cotton goes translucent. Clinging to her curves, and the outline of her bra.

Okay, so apparently dirty dishes can get sexy, after all.

Jules clears her throat and grabs a hooded sweatshirt from the back of a chair and pulls it on—zipping all the way to her chin. “You good to finish in here?” she asks, looking flustered.

I nod. Down, boy. “You go put your feet up.”

“You don’t have to ask twice.”

Jules exits the kitchen, fast, and I sigh. Kissing her back at HQ was a massive mistake . . . which left me with a massive hard-on for the rest of the afternoon. I couldn’t help it. Something about Jules is dangerously kissable.

And lickable.

And definitely fuckable.

I scowl at the dishcloths. I’ve never had a problem keeping my hands to myself before, and if I wanted to get a workout, I have plenty of options. I may not be living the wild playboy lifestyle anymore, but that doesn’t mean I’m a monk.

But Jules is off limits.

Which is probably why I’m going crazy over here trying not to notice the way she bites her lower lip when she’s thinking . . . or how her jeans fit way too well.

And if I even let myself start to remember how she felt in Vegas, bucking against me, begging for more—

Fuck, I’m going to need a damn cold shower twice a day at this rate.

---

I finish clean-up duty and grab a beer from the fridge. Then I pause, and take one for Jules, too. It’s only polite, after all, and we are going to be stuck together in this house until I win custody. Roommates, that’s how I need to start thinking about her.

Professional, platonic roommates.

She’s in the living room, sprawled on the couch with her laptop balanced on her stomach.

“Whatcha doing?” I ask, taking a seat at the other end of the couch.

“Looking at porn,” she deadpans. Then she grins. “Just messing around with my CV.” She lowers the screen with a sigh and places the computer on the floor. “I don’t know why I feel like maybe if I get the exact combination of words in there, some magical door will suddenly unlock, but it’s worth a shot, right?”

“Makes sense to me,” I tell her, watching her chest rise and fall as she takes a long sip of her beer. Even in that ridiculous hoodie, she looks far too hot.

Roomie.

“I saw the pictures you put on the bookshelf,” she says, nodding at the built-ins beside the fireplace. “Of the kids and everybody. That was a good idea.”

I smirk, I can’t help it. “I have good ideas, occasionally.”

“Occasionally,” she teases, and for a second I know both of us are thinking about that kiss this afternoon. At the very least, I’m sure as fuck thinking about it: her eager mouth and that warm, soft body, the trumpet flare of her hips under my hands. Finally Jules clears her throat. “The one of you and the kids’ parents on the beach,” she says, looking back at the photos. “Where is that?”

“Morocco,” I say.

“What were they like?”

“Rob and Mel? They were the best,” I sigh. “Rob was a great guy. They used to plop us on the same blanket when we were babies. No business sense at all, you understand, but the guy literally would have given you the shirt off his back—I actually saw him do it, once, with a homeless dude in Downtown Crossing. Just whipped his hoodie off and walked around the rest of the day in a Red Sox tee.”

Jules smiles. “He sounds lovely.”

“Yeah, he was. We met Mel in college,” I continue. “She was barely five feet tall, she had the cutest face you ever saw—a bunch of freckles, just like Lottie—and the dirtiest fucking sense of humor on the planet Earth.” I shrug. “Once they got together it would have made sense for me to wind up third-wheeling it, but it never felt that way. We all just kind of . . . clicked.”

“The three best friends that anyone could have?”

“Yup.” I take a sip of my beer. “I know it might not make sense to you why they’d want Ez and Lottie to be here. But it makes sense to me.”

“I get it,” Jules says, and suddenly she looks very serious. She takes a deep breath. “Look, I know I’ve given you kind of a hard time about whether you know what you’re doing, and maybe I’ve been a little bit unfair.” She shrugs. “But it’s obvious to me that you love those kids, and that you have what it takes to be a good parent to them. So I just . . .” She trails off.

“Want me to live up to my potential?” I supply.

“Exactly.” Jules tucks her toes under my thigh. I take a chance and drop my free hand onto her ankle, my palm skating over the smooth, bare skin between her sock and the hem of her jeans. She looks up at me for a minute, biting her lip like she’s debating something. But she doesn’t move her foot.

“You must miss them a lot,” she says after a moment, leaning back and settling into the pillows, resting her beer bottle on her stomach and tucking one arm behind her head. “Rob and Mel, I mean.”

“Yeah.” I tilt my head up and stare up at the ceiling for a minute, thumb rubbing absentmindedly over her skin. “The truth is, it’s hard to think about them at all without getting either ragingly angry or hideously depressed, so I try not to, mostly. But if these kids are going to live with me long term”—not if, I remind myself, when—“I want to be able to talk about them. I want Lottie and Ez to know where they came from, that they had the coolest fucking parents on the planet. They deserve that much. One thing I’ll say about those guys is they had it figured out, you know?” I add. “The love, marriage, babies thing. I don’t what the secret was, but they nailed it.”

Jules laughs. “Well, I’m the wrong person to ask about that,” she tells me. “I mean, did you miss the part where I was available at a moment’s notice to pretend to be your fiancée?”

“Did you miss the part where I needed someone to pretend?” I lift my head again, grin at her. “I’m glad it’s you, though,” I confess after a moment, my hand tightening around her ankle. It feels weirdly important that she knows that. “After I got over the whole blast from the past thing, and the fact that you think I’m a total fucking loser, I mean. I’m really glad it’s you.”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh my God, men and their egos. I don’t think you’re a loser.”

“Can you take the compliment?” I tease. “Also, don’t lie. You think I’m something.”

“Well, that’s a fact,” Jules shoots back. She looks at me for a long time then, green eyes watchful. “I’m glad it’s you, too.”

The air between us crackles, and damn it, if I don’t see desire flickering in her eyes. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but fuck, my body stiffens and my blood gets hot.

I take her beer bottle out of her hand and set it on the table, deliberate. I surprised her this afternoon at the office. Right now I want to give her time to react.

Jules braces both hands on the sofa, sitting up slowly and leaning forward. “This is a bad idea,” she murmurs quietly.

“I’m sorry?” I tease, like I have no idea what she’s talking about. “What is, exactly?”

“Shut up,” she says, still leaning. She’s close enough that I can smell her, gardenias and cotton and skin. “Don’t act like you weren’t going to—” She waves her hand vaguely.

“Wasn’t going to . . . ?” I trail off, half-hiding a grin.

“You know,” Jules says. “Do something we shouldn’t.”

“Like this?”

I pull her into a kiss, suddenly wanting her so much I can’t stop.

She makes that same quiet, maddening sound from earlier before opening her mouth under mine, her tongue warm and with the faint limey tang of the beer. “Yes, that,” she whispers, sinking her teeth into my bottom lip. “Which is a very bad idea.”

“The worst,” I agree happily, sliding my hands over her hips. “Just terrible.”

“Shut up,” she says, kissing me harder. “Before you remind me we really shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I follow orders, unzipping the hoodie and burying my face against her chest. I nip through the fabric, then push it up, licking and suckling at her hot skin.

Jules moans against me, and I tip her back into the cushions, loving how she feels against me—even if we are both wearing way too many clothes. Her legs come up around me, and she arches up, pressing those amazing curves against my body.

“Fuck, Jules,” I groan. There’s a part of me that thought I imagined what happened between us in Vegas—not the sex itself but the intense, surprising connection, like we’d known each other a whole lot longer than just one night. But I felt it again this afternoon and I can’t help but notice it now—an easy, bone-deep compatibility, like her body and my body are real old friends.

“Don’t stop.” Jules wraps a leg around mine to keep me where I am, the two of us finding a slow, heavy rhythm; we lie there making out like a couple of teenagers, my mouth on her collarbone and her hands gripping my ass. I haven’t come in my pants since I was sixteen years old, but it’s starting to feel dangerously like we’re headed in that direction; I’m reaching down for the button on her jeans when I hear the telltale thud of little feet on the stairs.

My whole body seizes up as sure as if somebody had dumped a bucket of ice water down my shirt.

“Did you hear that?” she asks, not waiting for an answer before shoving me so hard I slip right off the couch. She yanks her shirt back down just as Ezra wanders into the living room, trailing Howard by his tail.

“I can’t sleep,” he announces, then looks at me and narrows his eyes, suspicious. “Why are you sitting on the floor?”

“Good for my back,” I fumble. “What’s the story, huh? Bad dreams?”

“Yeah,” he says with a sigh that’s awfully weary for a seven-year-old, shuffling over and plunking himself down into my lap. “I miss Mom and Dad.”

My heart freezes, then sinks like a stone. “I know, buddy,” I tell him finally, pushing his sticking-up hair back off his forehead. “I miss them, too.” I think for a minute. “You wanna look at pictures, maybe?”

Ezra nods. Jules hops up off the couch and pulls a few of them off the bookcases, handing them to Ezra to hold. I take a deep breath and start telling him every story I can think of: about the trip we took to the Galapagos to swim with the tortoises, about the three-legged dog Rob had as a little kid. About the nights he and Lottie were born. Finally I feel him start to relax against me, his heavy head knocking softly against my shoulder; a moment later his breathing goes deep and even, his sturdy little body dead weight in my arms. I get to my feet as steadily as possible, not wanting to jostle him awake.

“I gotcha, buddy,” I murmur as we head for the staircase; Jules catches Howard just as he falls from Ezra’s hand. “We’re okay.”