Before Tatum is halfway up the staircase, I’m searching for her phone in her purse. Unsure how long she’ll be gone, I rush to pull up her photo gallery where I find a shit ton of photos of Tatum and her mother.

Even in a hurry, I stop to enjoy a few pictures. Marissa Dole gave birth to her double with Tatum. I don’t see anything of Howler in the younger blonde while the smiling women are nearly twins. I hope our children take after their mother so Marissa can live on in them.

I eventually remember how I’m on a time crunch and Tatum might return any moment. I transfer the photos to my phone and then to my Cloud account to allow Bianca Bella access to them.

Texting the brunette, I ask her to go through the photos and pick the best ones to print and frame.

I end with, “ASAP!”

“UR not my bossssssss!” she texts back.

“Please?”

“OK then. ☺”

With Bianca Bella on the job, I return Tatum’s phone to her purse. Stealth mode complete, I sit on the couch and flip through her photos on my phone.

One takes my breath away. Tatum as a goofy teen with an overly layered haircut and way too much eyeshadow is possibly the sexiest photo I’ve ever seen. I can nearly feel what she was like not so long ago—effortlessly beautiful and terribly dorky.

The hundreds of pictures I flip through reveal Tatum’s life from when she was a baby on her mom’s hip to weeks ago when Marissa lied on her deathbed. I feel as if I know her better by the time she returns to the living room with red, blotchy, yet dry eyes.

“I’m sorry I complained so much about my job,” she says, sitting next to me as I tuck my phone in my pocket. “The best part of working at the daycare was spending all day with Mom. Now I have a job where I can spend all day with you. I see things more clearly now.”

“Smart girl.”

“Besides, I’ll be pregnant soon, and then the baby will be born, and I’ll have him to keep me company.”

Startled by her certainty, I find myself speechless for a minute. “Do you want to be pregnant soon?”

“I figured you wanted to compete with Cricket, and I’m very interested in a baby with you now that I know you’re part alien.”

I laugh at the wink she gives me and then imagine our baby looking just like her. Unless it’s a boy. I can’t pray for freckles on my son. He’d never forgive me. Girls have more leeway on that.

“What now?” she asks.

I take her hand and caress her soft knuckles. “We should play a game.”

“Like Yahtzee?”

“More like hide-and-seek. You’ll find a spot in the house and make knocking noises until I find you. We can time it. If I find you in less than a minute, you have to take off a piece of clothing. If I take longer than a minute, I’ll take off a piece of clothing. So, yeah, strip hide-and-seek.”

Tatum cocks one of her blonde eyebrows. “What’s the point of this game besides getting me naked? Couldn’t you do the same thing in a less silly way?”

“Silly? That’s low, Breezy.”

“So we’re not playing?” she asks, not falling for my pout.

“No, we are. I just wanted to act really put out first so you’d feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t pity you, though.”

“Another cold comment from the hot lady. So, here’s the point of the game. You know, besides the naked thing. You’ll get to know the house a little better.”

“Can I put on more clothes before we start?”

“What for? You’re wearing two socks, pants, shirt, and I assume you aren’t going commando. That’s six pieces of clothing. No doubt we’ll be bored of the game before you’re close to being buck naked.”

“Are you going commando?” she asks, glancing down at my crotch.

Loving how she’s teasing me, I tease her right back by pulling off my shirt. “Well, I’m not wearing a bra if that’s what you’re asking.” I tug forward on my jeans and glance down at the half an inch of room I’ve made. “I am wearing briefs, though. Want to see?”

“No, I think you have a chest,” Tatum says, nearly drooling.

“I do have a chest.”

“I don’t care.”

“Why would you?” I murmur.

“It’s just, should you put on your shirt or leave it off for the chest?”

“Would you like to touch my chest to ensure my muscular gifts are real?”

Nearly in heat, Tatum shakes her head. “No.”

“I think you do.”

Tatum fans herself. “Let’s play that game. I don’t need to see or touch more.”

“I’ll keep my shirt off, so you’re ahead of the game. I have four pieces of clothing before I’m naked. Wait, let me get rid of my socks too,” I say, reaching down to tug off the left one followed by the right. “Should I strip off my pants too and give you a really big head start?”

“Huh?” she says, looking dazed.

“Is this the horniest you’ve ever been?”

“No, last night was, and shut up.”

I can’t help laughing. “Your cheeks are fire truck red. Are you overheated? Possibly, you could remove a few items of clothing to cool off.”

“Shut up.”

“Have you lost the ability to say anything besides ‘shut up’?”

“No,” she says, sounding dazed. “I go stairs now.”

“Yeah, you do that, and I’ll count to twenty while flexing my chest muscles.”

Tatum glances back and frowns. “Shut up.”

I tighten my fists to flex my sculpted chest muscles. Tatum stares at them and then sighs. “Shut up.”

Laughing, I watch her hurry upstairs. I replay her flustered reaction in my head and laugh again. Hot and bothered is a very entertaining look on her.

Once Tatum disappears down the hallway, and my laughter dies down, I count to twenty and set my phone’s timer for a minute. Upstairs, I try to narrow down where she might hide.

“Knock on something to give me a hint,” I call out.

A muffled knocking sound is her reply. I walk further down the hall, glancing into one room and then another. I don’t take the time to search, having decided to keep her fully dressed at the end of this game. Tatum needs to strip for me on her own terms, not because I won.

The timer goes off, and I tell her to show herself. Nothing happens, so I walk to my master bedroom at the end of the hall. The door is open as I left it, and nothing seems disturbed, but I know she’s here because Camel Toe stares at my bathroom.

“Thanks for the assist,” I tell my cat.

Knocking on the bathroom door, I study the darkness inside and wait for Tatum to appear. She doesn’t, though. I turn on the light and find the bathroom empty.

“What the fuck were you staring at then?” I ask Camel Toe who yawns in response. “Tatum, where the hell are you hiding?”

“Did you,” she says, startling the shit out of me when her head pops up from behind the bed, “ever see that episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ where a little girl disappears into another dimension behind her bed?”

“Yeah, I remember that one,” I say, resting one knee on my bed.

“I got to thinking about it when I was hiding. Like what if I fell into another dimension and you never found me.”

“Didn’t the parents get the girl back in the episode?”

Tatum climbs onto the bed, resting on her knees. “Yes, because a smart person helped them.”

“I know smart people.”

“You are smart people.”

“Are you ready to play again?” I ask while tugging at her sweater.

“No. I want to talk about tonight.”

“What about it?”

“I want to have my first time with you tonight.”

“Why tonight?”

“I’m about to gush gallons of blood from my vaginal area.”

“Do you really think that kind of talk will make my dick any less hard?”

Tatum’s gaze goes straight to my crotch. “If I had a penis, I have no doubt that bloody vaginas would act as a boner repellent.”

“If that’s true, your dick is weak and should be ashamed of its cowardliness.”

“Are you saying no about tonight?”

“Can’t we let the mood strike us rather than planning everything?”

“No,” she cries as if I’m a dipshit. “My brain is stuck on wondering what it’ll feel like. Will it be awful? Will you be awful? Will I have to grin and bear it to save your feelings? Until I know the answers, I can’t shake free from the heat you gave me last night. I don’t want to wait until after my period is over. I want to know now, but not this very instant kind of now.”

“Why not? We’re already in bed, and I’m half naked.”

Shaking her head, Tatum gazes at me full of pity. “Chipper, I want it to be dark when we have the sex.”

“I want to be able to see every freckle on your body.”

“Not on my first time. I need to feel secure and sexy. Right now, I’m bloated and shy about my freckles.”

“Your needs are so specific. I’m unsure how I feel about that,” I tease.

“You’re pushy, so I’m being just like you.”

“No, no, we can’t both be pushy. One of us must compromise.”

“I’m glad you understand,” she says, taking my hand. “We’ll have sex tonight in the dark. Thanks for compromising on this for me.”

Grinning, I squeeze her hand. “Well played.”

Tatum laughs and falls to her side. Her hand frees itself from mine and reaches for what she’s been eyeing since her head popped out from behind the bed. I rest next to her on the bed and let her horny little fingers explore my yummy muscular chest.