I have a really bad feeling about this,” I admitted as we piled out of Jen’s SUV and the overflow of music that spilled from the bar collected around the three of us. The gathering dread in my stomach had been churning since we’d finished dinner and I’d gone to get dressed to go out. I couldn’t help the feeling that Garrett would think this was me checking up on him rather than the pleasant surprise it was meant to be. There was a nagging at the back of my mind telling me to turn around and go back to the barn apartment, but Jen and Megan thought I was just being paranoid.

Maybe I was.

“Would you just come on? You’re nervous about seeing him, that’s all,” Meg said, gripping my hand and tugging me up the few steps to the front door, using her hip to push it out of her way. Jen was behind me, and I suspected she was there to catch me if I tried to flee.

The music grew louder when the door was out of the way, and any chance at a quiet entrance was lost the moment Megan was inside. Her loud hello and order for three margaritas was met with the silence of voices so that only the music filled the space. It was only seconds later that I was swept off my feet and faced with the gorgeous melted pools of chocolate that were Garrett’s eyes, my legs circling his waist.

“You’re here,” he breathed, his hands tight on my thighs as he backed me into a wall, unashamed of his reaction.

“Surprise,” I giggled out, my arms circling his neck as my legs tightened around him. Relief flooded me as the dread slowly subsided and was replaced with the warmth of his body and the excitement of his pleasure.

“When did you get in?”

“Around three. I managed to get Holly a riding lesson for four.”

“Why didn’t you call me?” He kissed me, his eyes on mine as he did. The gesture was fleeting and sweet but still left me wanting more as he pulled back enough to leave an inch of space between our lips.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to get away tonight, and if you knew I was here and unable to come see you, we’d both be miserable thinking about it, so I figured I would suffer alone.”

“Yet, here you are.”

“My girls don’t like to see me suffer,” I mused, nodding over his shoulder at Meg and Jen who were watching with grins that almost matched my own.

Garrett kissed me again, this time with more fervor and passion, and my hands buried themselves into his hair to hold him to me. The whole bar seemed to whoop and holler in encouragement, but that didn’t deter Garrett. His tongue swept into my mouth with need and promise, leaving me breathless when he finally pulled away, my eyes still closed as a stupid smile blossomed on my lips.

“Damn, it’s good to see you, baby.”

I let my eyes flutter open and shook my head slowly, my smile now a beam of delight on my lips.

“You have no idea.”

Garrett set me on my feet and kissed the top of my head, ignoring the catcalls of his friends as they raised a beer to him in a toast. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and drew me to him in a hug as he told them all where to go with their suggestions of getting a room and charging for the show we were putting on.

“Let me get a round,” he said when he finally released me from his grip enough to look down at me. “I’ll have a couple with y’all then leave you to catch up.”

“You’re too good,” I admitted and smiled up at him. Since the moment he’d swept me up in his arms things in my stomach had moved from dread to a swarm of hummingbirds that were anticipating that feeling of need and pleasure that he always filled me with. I couldn’t remember why I’d been so nervous now I was here.

“Not really. I still want you to come home with me.”

I thought about my response. I wanted nothing more than to end up in his bed with him tonight, but I had a promise to my daughter I had to keep. As long as I made it home before she woke up, I couldn’t see any harm in going with him.

“As long as you can have me home before dawn. It’s my turn to cook breakfast, and I promised Holly some chocolate chip pancakes.”

“I wouldn’t let you miss it for the world.”

“This is why you’re a keeper,” I said kissing his bottom lip and stepping out of his embrace. “Come and join us when you can.”

He brushed his lips against mine and headed back toward the bar, raising his arms at the comments from the group of men he’d been standing with. Shaking my head, I broke away and headed to the booth that Jen and Megan had managed to snag, and flopped into the bench across from them with warm cheeks.

“I think he missed you,” Megan mentioned casually, her forefinger and thumb dunking the straw into her frozen margarita. “I don’t think I’ve seen a display like that since college.”

“He wants me to go home with him tonight.”

“Yes. I will keep an eye on Holly, even if she’s fourteen and completely able to look after herself.”

“You sound just like Holly.”

“Because she used to say the same thing at that age,” Jen interjected. “If memory serves, when I finally listened, I came home and found you two on your third slasher movie and as nervous as cats in a room full of rocking chairs.”

“Ah, Freddy, Jason, and Michael,” I said fondly.

“You should be grateful, Mom. Those three were responsible for my virginity lasting as long as it did.” Megan winked at me and started to laugh only seconds before I did.

Jen raised her eyebrows and looked between Megan and me in question, and it was me who finally responded through my laughter. “Those three always killed the teens before, during, and after they’d had sex. The virgins were the only ones who survived.”

“Oh, Christ on a cracker,” Jen said, rolling her eyes in exasperation. “There’s a glaring recommendation for teenage abstinence.”

“We talked about that for hours,” Megan wheezed out. “And I don’t know why you’re complaining. It worked, didn’t it?”

“It didn’t last as long as I wanted it to.” Jen snorted. “Every time Robert picked you up, I was convinced you were having sex.”

“Desensitization,” Megan said, dropping her straw and spreading her hands wide. “And I hate to break it to you, Mom, but we were.”

Jen sat back in the booth and waved her hands in front of her with a choked laugh. “I really don’t want to know that. I still like to believe you haven’t had sex.”

“I have two children, Mother, and…” Megan looked at me with a smirk. “I didn’t find them in a dumpster.”

I started laughing again. “It worked until I had to tell her the truth, and now it’s an inside joke between the two of us.”

“It’s cute,” Jen agreed. “And don’t gloat, Meg, Katie’s going to be asking you soon enough. Then you’re going to have to deal with that heartbreak.”

“And awkwardness. So awkward,” I agreed, leaning forward and sucking down a large gulp of my margarita. “Explaining to a twelve-year-old what goes where and why we do it for fun is not my idea of a good time.”

“Don’t,” Megan whined, dropping her head in her hands. “I’ve done extensive research, and I know that’s not gonna do shit when it comes time to have the talk. She’s already curious, and I’m pretty sure she’s done some Googling herself.”

“Megan!” Jen’s eyebrows were so high on her head they looked as though they were ready to blend with her hairline. “If she doesn’t come to you, you have to go to her. Open up the lines of communication so she knows she can talk to you about it.”

“You mean like I can talk to you about Robert and I having sex?”

Jen scowled at her daughter, but the humor shone in her eyes.

“To be fair,” I joined in, “you do have the propensity to describe your sex life in great detail.”

I looked up just in time to see Garrett spin on his heel with a tray of drinks and head back to the bar, his shoulders shaking with laughter. I covered my mouth with my hand and looked at the other two, who were already in the throes of laughter at my expense.

“Come back,” I called out, half laughing, half horrified. “We’ll change the subject, I promise.”

Garrett pushed the tray onto the surface of the bar as he approached, then spun and leaned back against it, his hands up in defense, his laughter coming easily.

“Did I scare you?” I asked earnestly, sliding from the booth and approaching slowly. Lowering the volume of my voice, I rested my hands on his hips and leaned in. “All that sex talk turn you off?”

“Just the opposite,” he admitted, his hands sliding up over jaw and into my hairline. “You have no idea how difficult it is not to throw you over my shoulder and steal you away.” He leaned in closer, his mouth inches from my ear. “All I can think about now is burying myself inside of you.”

All feeling in my legs deserted me at once, and I leaned in closer to him for support at the sensation. Damn him and his ability to render me insatiably horny. If I said I hadn’t been thinking about our first night back together, I’d be a damn liar, but standing in front of him, it was all I could think about now. How the hell did he do that?

“You think they’d mind if we put off introductions and I stole you early?”

I looked up at him and smiled. I understood what he was asking of me. He didn’t want to tear out of here, even if I would have agreed in a heartbeat. He was giving me time with the two of them before we left because if he joined us at the table, we wouldn’t make it ten minutes, and we both knew it.

“An hour?”

“I think I can manage that,” he said, grabbing the beer from tray behind him and draining half the bottle. “Maybe.”

“You’re insatiable,” I whispered, pushing up on my toes and kissing his lips. He tasted like Garrett, beer, and man, which made me hum in appreciation. “But you’re making the assumption I can last that long.”

“You’re killing me.”

I reached around him and slid the tray into my hand, smiling a wicked smile I knew he’d come to enjoy. “Have I told you about my new appreciation for porn?”

His mouth fell open and closed a couple of times like a fish out of water. He made a grab for me, but I was already out of reach and heading back to the table with a satisfied grin. I didn’t need to see his face to know what would be there. I was beginning to learn all of his faces, and what I couldn’t fill in, Jen and Megan did with their reactions.

“What did you just say to him?” Megan asked, eyes flitting between Garrett and me. “He’s still standing there with his mouth open.”

“Order up,” I called, sliding the plate down the kitchen counter toward the little hands waiting for it. I’d barely had an hours sleep, and every part of my body ached, but a promise was a promise, and it wasn’t like I wasn’t in a fantastic mood.

“These are amazing, Mom,” Holly said around her fork, before sliding the syrup to Emmett who was drooling over the two stacked on his own plate. “You think you could make strawberry tomorrow?”

“Not tomorrow, baby, but the morning after, you got it.”

“Ooh, are you staying the night at your boyfriend’s house?” she asked, cutting off another section of pancake and grinning at me before she shoveled it into her mouth.

“I am. If you’re still okay with it.”

“Mom, you don’t have to ask my permission. You’re an adult, and you always make good choices.”

“You’re delusional, my short friend,” Megan said, patting Holly’s head as she passed, sticking her tongue out at me. “She’s been known to make terrible choices.”

“My mom?” Holly asked.

While Emmett inquired, “Why is aunt Kay having a sleepover?”

“Because boyfriends and girlfriends have sex,” Katie responded matter-of-factly, scooping two more pancakes onto her plate.

The silence was thick enough to cut with a knife. Robert was frozen, his cup halfway to his mouth. Megan was standing next to me with her hand over her eyes, and Holly was looking between the three of us with amusement painted on her features. Emmett was the one who finally broke the frozen state, and I almost wished he hadn’t.

“What is sex?”

“Fucking karma,” Megan groaned and dropped her hand to look at me before silent laughter reached her eyes. “Emmett, ask your dad.”

“But—” Rob started, only to be cut off by his son’s inquiry.

“Daddy?”

“Oh my God. You’re such a child, Emmett,” Katie exclaimed. She was eleven going on eleventy as she looked at us all in exasperation. “Men put their penises in a woman’s vagina a lot, and then the sperm fertilizes an egg in the woman’s belly, and a baby grows. It’s like that watermelon seed we planted, right? Sometimes it grows, sometimes it doesn’t.”

We all looked at one another, and Robert shrugged and nodded when Emmett looked at him for confirmation. It seemed the search engine had been doing its job better than we’d been doing ours.

“Wait! Aunt Kay is having another baby?” Emmett asked in excitement. “Is it a boy, like me?”

“No,” I squeaked. “I don’t have an, um, egg to fertilize.”

“Then why are you having sex?”

“Great question, Emmett,” Holly said, turning in her seat, her face red with her attempt to not laugh or cry. I wasn’t sure which at this point, but I was ready to cry, and Megan looked like she was in the same boat. It was like a snowball rolling downhill, gaining traction and disaster levels as it went. “Why are you having sex, Momma?”

Well, this wagon was driverless. I needed someone to grab the reins before we went off a cliff.

“Because when adults like each other very much, sex is a way of expressing that,” Robert finally said, picking up his tablet and scrolling through it. “It doesn’t make sense to you now because you’re too young to understand. One day, it will start to make more sense, and on that day, son, you come and talk to me, okay?”

“M‘kay.”

The room seemed to let out a collective breath as the disaster was averted. It was ironic that this very topic had only come up the evening before. It seemed Little Miss Katie had been doing more research than Megan had anticipated.

“Kate, do you have questions, baby?” Megan asked, bracing the counter for a yes.

“No, ma’am, I’m good for now.”

“Will you come see me if you have questions?” Megan asked, her voice an octave higher than normal.

“Sure, Mom.”

Megan nodded and turned to the coffee pot, her other hand reaching for mine and squeezing. “I shouldn’t have laughed at you last night. Payback is a heinous bitch. I need to call my mom and apologize to her, too. Jeeze.”

“It went better than my talk with Holly,” I whispered. “Katie had better facts.”

Megan laughed earnestly and filled up her mug with coffee as the insanity passed and the conversation at the table turned to horses and the riding lessons from the day before. I made a note to myself to never mention sleepovers at breakfast again, and I went back to cooking the last of the pancakes for myself.

“So, am I going to get to meet your boyfriend?” Holly asked as she slipped her plate into the sink and turned to lean against the counter.

I’d known that question was coming again. Considering this as the longest relationship I’d been in since I’d had Holly, it was only natural that her curiosity would get the better of her. After the discussion at the table that just passed, I should have been more prepared than I was right now.

Holly wasn’t a kid anymore. She wouldn’t instantly get attached to some guy I was with now. She was cautious enough to realize it may not last. I’d protected her for so long. She’d never asked to meet anyone before Garrett.

“You really want to meet him?”

“Of course I do, Mom. He makes you happy. I figure it’s about time.”

I nodded in agreement and turned off the hot plate I’d been using. There was a buzzing in my ears that came with the stark panic of how quickly things were moving, but maybe it was better this way. If she didn’t like him or if they didn’t get along… we could deal with that if or when that happened.

“How about we get you a couple more lessons, then visit the ranch where he works? We can visit with him and the horses.”

“Really?” Holly was practically vibrating with excitement now, and I knew that was the horses, not Garrett, but I would take the meager offering for now. The horses would be a distraction if things got awkward. Although, if Garrett was half as charming to Holly as he was with every other human, I believed she would love him… I just wasn’t sure how I felt about that possibility coming so quickly.