Page 42 of More Than Friends

Her lips twitch for a moment. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth in an attempt to fight her smile, but it doesn’t work. Her entire face lights up, and she beams at me. “Nothing,” she responds.

My mouth falls open. “No, you can’t saynothing. I asked you questions, and you didn’t answer any of them. And why are you smiling?”

Her nose crinkles when her smile grows even wider, and fuck, why is she so adorable? I’ve always been attracted to Charlotte. There’s no denying she’s absolutely gorgeous. With her long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and heart-shaped face, she makes every man do a double-take at the club. But it’s different now. I see her, and it’s not that I’m just attracted to her. There’s a pull I feel to her that I’ve never felt before. I’m starting to notice everything about her—the crinkle to her nose when she smiles, the way she blushes a perfect shade of red, or when she bites her lip when she’s nervous. None of these are things I’ve noticed before.

“Char,” I prod, speaking up to get out of my head and stop obsessing over the fact that I’m starting to get a little too attracted to my best friend. “Why are you smiling and not answering my questions?”

She shakes her head and bites her lip again, andfuck…why do I want to be the one biting her lip instead? Would she like that? I desperately want to find out.

“It’s just kind of cute when you’re worrying about Ava. I obviously have never seen this side of you. I like it.”

I swallow, ripping my gaze from hers. My ears feel hot, and I think it’s her turn to makemeblush. No one ever makes me blush, but something about her compliment makes my entire face feel hot. “Did you hear that, baby girl?” I ask Ava, pulling out the bottle of soap from the basket next to me. “Charlotte just called me cute again. Do you think she likes me?”

Charlotte scoffs from my side before softly pushing my shoulder with her wet hand. “I give you one compliment, and it goes to your head. That’ll be the last time you get one from me.”

I give her a cocky smile over my shoulder. “No it won’t.”

Charlotte rolls her eyes before leaning forward and turning the water back on. “Stop flirting and finish cleaning Ava. I want to give her snuggles.”

I do as I’m told, loving how right it feels to do something so simple as giving my daughter a bath with Charlotte.

I’m really going to love having her here with us this summer.

I just hope I don’t love having her here a little too much.

TWENTY-FIVE

CHARLOTTE

“Why doesshe sleep so good during the day and not at night?” Jude asks. He bounces on his feet in the living room, going from one foot to the other as he tries to calm Ava down.

“Because she’s a baby,” I answer from the kitchen. I work on warming up her bottle, hoping maybe that’s the reason she’s refusing to eat anything and, therefore, refusing to sleep.

Jude paces the living room. He swings his body from left to right so hard I’m shocked the motion isn’t enough to get Ava to go to sleep.

She lets out a loud cry and refuses to let Jude place her head against his chest.

“The milk’s almost done,” I tell him, testing it on my wrist. It’s warmer than it was the last time I tried offering her a bottle, but still a good temperature that isn’t too hot for her.

Before closing the distance to Jude and Ava, I check the time and find that it’s just after midnight. We spent the rest of the day getting my boxes into the house, and I unpacked while Ava slept and Jude got some work in. We ordered in for dinner, and as far as my first night staying here goes, it was going well until Ava woke up at nine and decided she didn’t want to go back to sleep at all.

“You can go to bed,” Jude tells me for what feels like the hundredth time.

“I didn’t know I needed permission to go to bed,” I tease, trying to keep the mood light despite Ava’s crying. I’m exhausted and should probably sleep, but I want to keep spending time with him. I’ll sleep eventually.

Jude cradles her in the crook of his elbow and gets her in the position to take a bottle when I hand it to him. “I don’t work again until Thursday this week, so I don’t mind staying up with you while we figure this out.”

He doesn’t respond. We both seem to hold our breath as Jude offers Ava the bottle. If she’ll drink it, I feel like we’ll have a better chance at trying to get her to sleep. She had her last bottle three hours ago, so there’s a chance she’s hungry, and now that the milk is warmer than normal, maybe this will do the trick.

Jude and I share a hopeful look when she starts to drink the milk. She drinks maybe an ounce of it before turning her head and letting out another cry.

I step closer and rub my thumb along her forehead. “Your little eyebrows are so red, sweet girl. Go to sleep. I promise you’ll feel better.”

It calms her for a minute until she gets back to being upset all over again.

I frown, wondering what else we can try. I think about all the different things we used to do when my nieces and nephews were little…then get an idea.

“Let’s drive around,” I offer, a smile growing on my lips because I think this might actually work.