The guys drifted back to the volleyball court, teasing each other.
"So you liked the fact that he was a father," Ivy prompted me when we were alone again.
I watched Dalton as he pulled off his shirt and wiped the sweat from his brow. The muscles in his back flexed. My entire body flushed with heat. "He's attractive. He's a great guy. And he's a good dad."
"You like him."
I looked at Ivy. "That's what I've been telling you."
"I just didn't see it until now. You looked uncomfortable when he was holding your hand earlier, but now, seeing you look at him, it's clear that you like him."
I swallowed hard. "Once I moved in with him, he was impossible to resist."
Hazel sat in the sand next to us. "I can tell you all about forced proximity and how it makes everything go faster. I'd been friends with Brady for years, but there's something about sharing a bed and a bathroom that speeds things up. Let me tell you."
Would they expect us to share a bed? Would it make things more believable? What if his parents stopped by and noticed that I slept in a different room?
My throat felt dry, and it had nothing to do with the sand we were playing with. I grabbed a water bottle and drank from it.
"Living together accelerates everything. I don't know if we would ever have figured things out living apart and being friends. Both of us were too afraid to risk our friendship," Hazel continued.
Ivy nodded. "It was a trial run. You were able to see if you were compatible. If you weren't, you would have gone back to being friends."
"Maybe? That was the thing we were worried about the most. If we'd broken up, someone would have had hard feelings."
I respected Dalton as a person, but we hadn't been friends before. What did that mean for our fake relationship? It was probably less likely to turn into anything real. Even if I was attracted to him, it didn't mean that he was attracted to me.
"I'm so happy for Dalton. He deserves this more than anyone. I was so worried about him," Ivy said, driving one of Henry's trucks over the sand, making vroom-vroom noises.
Hazel glowered. "Oakley's awful. Who would keep someone from their child, and for what? It doesn't even sound like she wants Lilliana. She just wants to jerk Dalton around."
"She picks up Lilliana when she wants to be seen with her, but otherwise, we don’t hear from her. She doesn't want me living with him though. It's almost as if she wants to control Dalton and prevent him from ever dating anyone else," I said, thinking out loud.
Ivy bumped her shoulder with mine. "That doesn't bode well for your relationship. She might try and come between you guys. You better hope your relationship is strong enough to withstand her."
"Yeah." It obviously wasn't, because our relationship wasn't even real.
"You should come out with us sometime. We haven't had a girls' night in a while," Hazel offered.
"I have a hard time getting away from this handsome guy," Ivy said about Henry.
"I'm on call to watch Lilliana when she's with Dalton."
Hazel frowned. "Surely, you're not working every night."
"Besides, you're not just the nanny anymore. You're Dalton's girlfriend," Hazel said, and that hit me in the chest.
It felt good to be named someone's girlfriend, especially Dalton's. I'd been so focused on school that I hadn't allowed myself to get involved in a serious relationship in a long time.
"You're entitled to a night off. A girls' night with us," Elena said as she dropped to her knees between me and Hazel.
"That sounds nice." In the past, I felt like an employee, the nanny, not part of the family. That wasn't a change I'd anticipated.
"I think you're going to be good for Dalton," Elena said.
I tipped my head to the side as the girls continued to talk about me as if I weren't there with them.
"He needs a good woman in his life. One that doesn't manipulate him into doing whatever she wants," Hazel added.
