“Why? Because you don’t want it?” Blair made a point of running her eyes up and down the length of Erin’s body. “Or because you want it so bad you can hardly stand it.”

“I think you already know the answer to that.” Erin pushed past Blair, but before walking away, she checked for signs of anyone else around and when she found no one, she squeezed Blair’s ass.

Blair’s laughter followed behind her the rest of the way down the hall, and it was like music to her ears.

***

Nolan’s birthday party turned out to be a huge success, mostly thanks to Blair and her parents. All of the parents of Nolan’s friends seemed impressed, and Erin even managed to get a few of their numbers to set up future play dates. Some of the parents were under the impression that Blair was Nolan’s other mom, which Erin didn’t bother to correct, mainly because she had no idea how to actually describe their situation.

After the last parent and child left, Erin blew out a long breath. As much as she had enjoyed getting to know all of them, it was nice to be surrounded only by people she knew well.

“What can we help with?” April asked.

“You've done enough already.” Erin walked over to her backpack and dug through it until she found her keys. She pulled off her house key and threw it at April, who fumbled with it before giving up and letting it land on the floor. “Why don’t you all head back to my house and get yourselves settled?”

“Are you sure?” April looked around. “It looks like there’s still a lot to do.”

“We’re sure.” Blair walked up to Erin and put an arm around her waist. “You were such a big help in getting set up, and I know you had to leave at an ungodly hour to get here. Let us handle the rest.”

We. Us. Those words rang through Erin’s ears and made her heart skip a beat. She hadn’t realized how much she missed being part of a team. It felt good. Too good. There was that pit in her stomach again. She really needed to figure out how to stop that.

After saying goodbye to her family, Erin and Blair walked to the kitchen where Blair’s parents had already started cleaning up. “Please stop,” Erin told them. “You were so nice to host this party and set it up. I can handle the clean up.”

“She’s right, parentals.” Blair pointed her thumb over her shoulder. “Let us do all of this.”

Erin turned toward Blair and poked her side. “I was obviously talking about you  too. You got Nolan a freaking bounce house.”

Blair smacked her hand on her forehead. “Shit. That reminds me. I forgot to give Nolan his actual gift.”

“ Actual gift? There’s more?”