Erin was about to give up completely when an idea popped into her head. Brilliant . She smiled. Absolutely brilliant. “How ’bout we go to the store and get a treat?”

Nolan’s eyes lit up. “Cupcakes?”

Erin shrugged. “Sure. Why not?” She really hoped this plan worked, or else she still wouldn’t have any work done, but would have a kid hopped up on sugar.

“Yay!” Nolan hopped off of the couch and ran toward the door. When he saw Erin grab her computer, he tilted his head at her and scrunched up his nose. “Why do you need computer?”

“I just don’t want to leave it at the house by itself,” Erin lied. “It might get lonely.”

Nolan giggled as if she had just told him a poop joke. “Computers don’t get lonely.”

Erin raised her eyebrows at him. “How do you know?”

Instead of answering, Nolan simply shrugged and opened the front door. Thank god this didn’t turn into a game of twenty questions.

Just as she’d hoped, five minutes into their car ride, Nolan passed out. Erin drove the rest of the way to the grocery store since she knew that once he woke up, he would expect his cupcakes. Instead of going inside, she opened her computer and set it on the center console. Erin connected it to the hotspot on her phone and opened up her email. She smiled at Nolan, who now looked like a complete angel, and prepared herself to respond to the emails that had been sitting stagnant all day.

As soon as she hit reply on the first email, a teenager pulled into the parking spot beside hers, with music playing so loud she could hear every word. The music continued to play as he opened his door, which caused the sounds to blast into her car.

She closed her eyes. Please don’t wake u-

“Mommy!” Nolan wailed from the backseat.

Erin squeezed her eyes shut as all of the ways she wished she could murder  that teenager ran through her mind. Shoving the speakers right up his asshole might be nice.

“Mommy!” Nolan screamed once again. “Cupcakes. I want cupcakes.”

He continued to yell about cupcakes as Erin shut off the car and got out. When she noticed the teenage boy glaring at Nolan as if he was the one to blame, it took everything inside of Erin not to stick her middle finger up at him.

Instead, she plastered a smile onto her face and ignored the teenager as she opened Nolan’s car door. “Do you want cupcakes?” she joked. “I don’t think you do.”

“Cupcakes!” Nolan yelled even louder now, which caused the teenager to get back into his car and slam the door shut.

Sweet victory. “We could get broccoli instead. What d’ya think? Should we do that?”