Shopping for a Billionaire 3 by Julia Kent Page B

ling.
    “Thanks, buddy, but I don’t need to pee.”
    “You need to pee!” Tyler insists as Carol comes running from the kitchen and whisks him away to the bathroom.
    I get a questioning look from Declan and try to explain. “Potty training. And Tyler has a language disorder, so right now he confuses ‘you’ and ‘I.’”
    The lights go on for Declan. “I see. So he was saying ‘ I need to pee.’” He laughs. “I hope he made it.”
    Carol starts clapping and cheering from afar.
    “I’ll take that as a yes.” Declan’s kiss is polite and brief, so routine it warms my heart. That is the kind of kiss you give someone you’re becoming very comfortable with, and I love it.  
    L ove him .
    “Declan! You’re here!” Mom comes barreling out of the kitchen wearing a red apron that says “Will Cook for Sex.” She gives him a warm, motherly hug. He’s a head taller than her and yet she’s the one enveloping him. He closes his eyes and surrenders to the embrace. A tiny corner of my heart grows a little more.
    “Wine, as promised,” he tells her, handing off a bottle of something white. Looking art fully around the empty front room, he says with some care in a whisper, “And I have a bunch of plastic eggs stuffed with candy and toys out in my car. Where should I put them?”
    M om’s grin splits her happy face and she gives him a big kiss on the cheek. “You sweetie! When we’re ready for the egg hunt we’ll just grab them and hide them .” She holds the bottle away from her, squinting to read the label. “Jason! Come see Declan and take this chilled bottle out of here!”
    Dad walks down the hall and joins us. He’s wearing a matching apron, khakis, and no shoes or socks. I think Dad is allergic to socks and shoes.
    “ Declan!” They shake hands enthusiastically. “Good to see you.” Mom hands Dad the bottle.  
    “White!” she chirps.
    “Thank you,” Dad says to Declan. “Want a beer?”
    “ What about the wine, Jason?” Mom screeches, scandalized.  
    D eclan and Dad ignore her, like they planned it in advance. Dad shoots me a wink.  
    “Sure. Whatcha got?”
    “ You like stouts? I’ve got some microbrew from this little place in Framingham...” Declan walks away, following Dad, and just like that, he’s integrated into the household.
    I stand in my own childhood home and look around the living room. Everyone’s congregated in the tiny kitchen and I overhear Amy telling Carol about running in the marathon . Mom and Dad could buy a five-thousand- square-foot mansion in Osterville with an enormous living room and everyone would still cra m into the kitchen to talk and taste and hang out.
    Declan breezed into the house, was told he needed to pee by a child , offered up a bottle of wine, and boom! Dad takes him to his Man Cave in the backyard like we’re married and have been together forever.
    I’m sensing a trend here.
    This might actually happen. Me and Declan.
    Carol walks into the living room, rubbing vanilla-scented lotion on her hands. She stares at me for a second, eyebrows raised. “You okay?”
    “Dad just took Declan to the Man Cave.”
    “He’s being accepted into the tribe.”
    “Is that good or bad?” I give her a helpless look and sink down onto the couch. The springs are shot, so I literally sink down, my feet flying off the floor. I bury my head in my hands.
    Carol stands over me and finishes rubbing the lotion. “I think you’re afraid of success.”
    “ What? No. No, I’m not. I never had a problem with Dad taking Steve into the Land of Grunts and Farts.” Dad has a little hundred-square-foot shed that he winterized a while ago. It’s got a television, ancient lounge chairs Mom tried to throw away years ago, and all his old sci-fi paperbacks he’s been collecting since the 1960s, lined on homemade shelves.  
    He illegally piped a wood stove in there, and has an old milk jug I suspect doubles as a toilet in a pinch. Sometimes he and Mom have fights so