She tries to interrupt me. She doesn’t like it when I’m hard on myself about managing my super successful brother’s bar. Or tagging along on my super successful parents’ vacations. Or just stumbling through life with zero sense of direction in a family full of overachievers.

I ignore her protests and continue. “But of course my horse had to go ruin all my plans and injure himself just in time for show season. Tux needed surgery and now I’ll just spend my summer feeding him carrots and obsessively brushing him.”

My best friend just stares at me. I want to reach into her brain and pluck out her thoughts because I know she’s chock-full of them.

“I’ll be good. It’s a first world problem. I’ll visit you a bunch. You can brutalize me at your gym, and I’ll pick up the odd hockey player or bull rider. Win-win-win.”

“Right . . .” Her pointer finger taps against her top lip. “What if—”

“Oh no. Please don’t do the thing where you make it your job to fix my life. You help people too much, you know that?”

“Willa, shut up and listen to me.”

I press my ass back against the porch railing facing her and reach for the bottle of beer beside me. It’s dripping condensation down the side, and the liquid inside isn’t even that cold anymore. It’s only June and already unseasonably hot. Jeans were a mistake.

Taking a big pull, I roll my shoulders back. Ready to be scolded.

“What if I had a way for you to live out here for the summer? But not with Rhett and me.”

That is not what I was expecting her to say.

“I don’t want to camp in your yard. I’m not cut out for sleeping outdoors. I may not know what my path in life is yet, but I promise it doesn’t include air mattresses and sleeping bags.”

She rolls her eyes and forges ahead. “No. Rhett’s older brother needs help with his son for the months between school. The woman who took care of him when he was little can’t keep up anymore. He’s five.”

I stare at my friend, beer bottle swinging back and forth between my fingers. “You want me to take care of a child?”

“Yeah. You’re fun. And high energy. And if you can handle a bar full of drunk guys, then what’s one little boy who needs entertaining? You like kids, you always say you do.”

I mull the idea over in my head. My first inclination is to say no, but truthfully, I’m dreading these months without work, or competing, or my best friend. I’ve always liked kids, possibly because I still feel a bit like one sometimes.

“And where would I live?”