Her honesty blew me away. I reached over and gently rubbed her fingers with mine. “First of all, I’m ready, too, Dani. It might not be easy, but we’ll go slow and figure it all out. Second, remind me to double Ellie’s salary on Monday.”
Her eyes sparkled, and she let out a soft giggle as she dived on top of me.
CHAPTER 32
Danicka
“Good morning.” Andy had been saying those two words every single morning for the last month, and it never failed to make my skin ripple with goose bumps.
“Good morning to you.” I grinned back at him as he poured me a cup of coffee in my favorite yellow mug, something else he did every day. There were actually quite a few new routines we’d fallen into over the last month, and not just me and Andy, but me and the kids, too.
Without a doubt the most exciting was my morning walk with Becca, Logan, and Roxy. Once Roxy was feeling better and Dr. Sells was comfortable releasing her, I brought her home to Andy’s house. Turned out the kids had been asking for a dog for years but Andy kept saying no, so the fact that I brought Roxy home definitely upped my street cred with them.
Roxy joining the family wasn’t the only new regular thing we’d started doing. Assuming neither Andy or I had to work late, we had dinner as a family every single night, then put the kids to bed together. Becca and I had started reading books every night, and it was something I’d grown to look forward to, so much so that I’d been stopping at bookstores a lot lately, looking for something new that I thought she would like. After we were done reading, Andy and I would stare the clock, waiting for them to fall asleep, so we could sneak off into his room and make love until late into the night. Even if we didn’t have sex, we would lie in bed with our arms and legs tangled together as we talked for hours. My walls had completely crumbled to the ground, and over the last month, he’d learned everything there was to know about me. I set the alarm on my phone to go off half an hour before Logan’s so I had time to sneak back downstairs to my room. We thought we were being stealthy and hiding it from the kids and Gloria until one morning I ran into her in the kitchen. She was up early making cinnamon rolls as a surprise for the kids.
I stood frozen in the doorway, wringing my hands nervously as I tried to come up with a reason to be slinking down the stairs that early in the morning. I didn’t want her to know I was in the midst of some weird live-in walk of shame. She pursed her lips together and shook her head at me. “Not only are you wearing Mr. Shaw’s favorite T-shirt”—she glanced down at Andy’s shirt and back up at me—“you do know my bedroom is directly below his, right?” My mouth fell open as she winked and turned away.
It took a couple of days before I looked her in the eye again.
“Good morning, Gloria!” I said cheerfully as she came into the kitchen where Andy and I were sitting.
She smiled at both of us. “Good morning, you crazy kids. What’s on the agenda for today?”
“I actually have to head in early. I have a meeting with a potential client at seven.” I craned my neck to look at the clock on the oven. “I gotta get going.”
“Wait.” Andy spun around to face me. “You’re going in early?”
I nodded and walked over to him, giggling as I got closer. “You have some cream cheese on your lip, let me help you with that.” I raised to my tippy toes and seductively licked and kissed his top lip.
A faint gagging sound came from Gloria over at the kitchen table, and we both laughed.
“Oh, Gloria! You know you love us.” I walked over and wrapped my arms around her shoulders, squeezing gently. Andy and the kids weren’t the only ones I’d grown close to since I moved into Andy’s house. We had been friendly before, but after the hallway incident, Gloria and I bonded quickly. Andy adored her, and I respected the very important role she played in the kids’ lives. We also joked behind Andy’s back about how he was technically both of our bosses, and she liked to add that thankfully only one of us was sleeping with him. Gloria’s dry humor kept me on my toes, and I loved her for that.
I was hustling around my room, trying to find an outfit for the day when there was a soft knock on the door.
“Ugh. I don’t have time to talk,” I mumbled under my breath. “Come in!”
The door creaked open, and Andy peeked his head in. “Hey, I’m gonna jump in the shower right now. You sure you can’t wait for me?” We’d been driving to and from work together for the last three weeks or so and surprisingly had only stopped to have sex twice. Kudos to us.