“Awesome.”

I pass the phone back to Dax, and he okays whatever plans they have before he ends the call and tosses the phone on the coffee table. “Is it bad that I’m enjoying not being a parent this weekend?”

I give him a sympathetic, reassuring smile. “It makes you human. You’re allowed to miss your freedom, especially when it was taken from you so unexpectedly.”

“That’s exactly it, isn’t it? It’s a lot of responsibility, and the people who would normally help me through it are gone.”

“You’re handling it well.”

“I don’t want to talk about this right now. I only have another twenty-four hours with no responsibilities to get in the way.” He picks me up and carries me to the bed, his mouth on mine, hard and demanding this time. The sex is the same.

Half an hour later I’m stretched out along Dax’s side, one leg thrown over his, while his fingers trail gently up and down my arm. His phone rings from across the room and he sighs heavily.

“I can check to see who it is, if you want.” I push up and roll off the bed, not waiting for his reply. We can’t ignore phone calls when someone else is in charge of Emme’s care.

The caller ID comes up as his work. “It’s someone from your firm. Do you want to take it?”

“Yeah. I probably should.”

I rush the phone over and he answers before it goes to voicemail. It’s already four in the afternoon, we’ve missed the panel we were planning to attend, and I’m sure the opportunity for drinks with former classmates has passed. Dinner is in a couple of hours, and it might be good to go down to the hotel bar and be social for a while, even if the idea isn’t all that appealing. And I don’t want that gorgeous dress to go to waste.

Before I have a chance to make a move, Dax sits up and grabs my wrist. At my questioning look he shakes his head and presses the phone to his chest. “Don’t get dressed yet,” he whispers.

I climb back up on the bed, still naked just like he is. The conversation lasts about ten minutes, during which time I grab his laptop so he can make notes about a case he needs to follow up on when he’s in the office on Monday.

“Sorry about that,” he says after he ends the call, tossing his phone on the nightstand. He closes the laptop and moves it as well. “I don’t know what the point of that was. It could’ve waited until Monday.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Freeman is still getting used to the fact that I can’t work ninety hours a week. He forgets that people have lives on the weekend and we don’t all work twenty-four hours a day seven days a week.”

I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Have you given any more thought to the possibility of switching firms?”

“It’s starting to look a lot more desirable. I can’t keep these hours up, and my priorities have changed. As much as I want partner, I think you’re right about waiting on that, at least until Emme’s more settled and so am I. And money isn’t a driving force like it used to be.”

“Well, I’m sure the salary would be comparable at Whitman. I think you have to do whatever is going to make life easier.”

“It’s obviously an excellent firm, since Beverly was smart enough to snatch you up right out of law school.” He grabs me by the waist and rolls on top of me, fitting himself between my thighs. “I’d get to see you every day if I switched to your firm, wouldn’t I?”

“You would.”

“I think I’d like that, a lot. But the pencil skirt uniform might create some embarrassing problems.”

Dax drops me off at my place in the early afternoon on Sunday. He invites me for dinner but I blew off Holly this morning for our standing brunch date, so I’m making up for it with an early dinner. I also need an Epsom salt bath and a little space after such an intense weekend.

I squeeze in a short bath before I pick Holly up and drive us to the market. My thighs are tight, my calves ache, and even the arches of my feet are sore, possibly from all the toe curling.

“How was the conference?” Holly asks as we grab coffees and stroll along the promenade. The funky little shops remind me of my mom. When I was young we’d come to the market, or hit all the garage sales on the weekend in search of hidden treasures. My house is an eclectic mix of art pieces scavenged from various sales over the years. None of my plates and cups match, because they’re more of the same, items purchased during adventures with Holly or my parents. My house is where I let my nostalgia hang out. Although I do keep useful memorabilia at work in the form of mugs.

“It was good. I ran into a few old classmates, caught up a bit.”

“And how was Daxton?” Holly isn’t much of one for beating around the bush, and I already told her he was going to be there. Until now I haven’t mentioned the progression from enemies to friends to lovers, but I can’t keep this to myself anymore.

“Kailyn?” she prompts when I don’t answer right away. “What’s going on between you two?”

“We slept together.”

She comes to a halt in the middle of the street. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that? I swear you said you slept with him, but I must’ve heard that incorrectly.”

A few people glance our way. “Keep it down!”

“None of these people know you, and I’m sure most of them would applaud you for sleeping with a hot former actor.” Holly threads her arm through mine and leads me away from the thick crowd, down a side street. “I don’t know what to say. Is this like a cathartic hate fuck, or what?”

“Uhh . . . I think it falls more into the ‘or what’ category.”

Holly gives me a pensive look before she asks, “Is he any good?”

“Are sloths slow?”

“Want to rate him for me? Like on a scale of Jason Momoa to Ryan Reynolds, where would he be?”

“I had multiple orgasms.”

She stops and grabs me by the shoulders, eyes wide. “No.”

“Multiple orgasms, multiple times.”

Holly hugs me. “My God. You need to keep him forever.”

I laugh, but my stomach drops, because I have no idea where this thing is going with us, not just with Dax, but with everything surrounding him.

Holly steps back. “I need to know more, and I think we need alcohol.”

Dax and I were like college kids with the sex and the drinking this weekend, but I might need a little something to calm my nerves. Confiding in Holly is necessary, but it also means I have to face the truth, and I’m not sure I’ll like it.

We find a little pub and hole ourselves up in the back corner.

“So multiple multiples, huh?” Holly asks after we’ve ordered drinks and appetizers.

“Yup.” I fiddle with my napkin, the flush in my cheeks echoed in other parts of my body.

“Is he like—” She makes some hand motions and I realize she’s asking about size.

“Everything is very proportional.”

“Nice.”

The server drops off our drinks, and Holly waits until she’s gone before she raises her glass. “To multiple multiples and being proportional.”

I clink my glass against hers and chuckle. My phone buzzes on the table. It’s Emme. “I need to check this.”

It’s a few pictures from the weekend. The last one is a selfie of Emme making a ridiculous face, thumbing over her shoulder. In the background is Dax, head tipped back, mouth hanging open, fast asleep on the couch. I message back that I’m out with a friend and that she should probably let her brother sleep.

“Sorry about that.” I slip my phone into my purse.

Holly regards me with wary curiosity. “So apart from sleeping together this weekend, what’s going on with you and Dax? Is this just a casual thing?”

I focus on my drink. “I don’t know.”

“Aren’t you trying to get him to come over to your firm? How are you going to sleep with him and work with him?”

I bite my thumbnail. The nagging worries I’ve been hiding from since this entire thing started with Dax envelop me like a cold fog. “I haven’t really figured that out yet.”

“Well, don’t you think you should?” Her voice is laced with concern. “What’re you doing?”

“It just happened.” I can’t believe I just said those words to my childhood best friend.

She leans back in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest. “Oh no. Things don’t just happen with you. You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about all of the potential repercussions before you fell into bed with him. Is it unethical for you to be sleeping with him?”

“Technically, no, since Dax isn’t my client. I’m sleeping with my client’s brother, so maybe it’s morally ambiguous, but it’s not unethical.”

“Is there a but in there somewhere that I missed?”

“There’s no but. I just didn’t expect to feel this way about him,” I admit.

“And how do you feel about him?”

“I like him.”

I get another raised eyebrow from her. “You like him?”

“A lot.”