“’Kay,” Ethan replied.

Merry kept walking.

I put my hands to his chest. “I can make it to my bedroom.”

“I’m sure you can,” Merry said but didn’t put me on my feet.

I rolled my eyes, which was about all I had time for before we were in my room (my house was tiny).

He put me to my feet by the bed.

“Get ready,” he ordered when I tilted my head back to look at him. “I’m gonna help Ethan close the house down for the night.”

“Whatever,” I muttered.

He grinned at me.

I stumbled slightly and annoyingly as I headed to my dresser.

Merry chuckled.

I rolled my eyes again.

I felt his presence leave and the truth of it was, it was late, I was tired (I didn’t get a lot of sleep on any kind of normal basis), life had been a roller coaster lately but we’d had a good night, the three of us, and right then, I was out of it.

So out of it, I didn’t have it in me to dig through my drawers and accomplish the colossal feat of finding sleepwear sexy enough for the first time I wore it around Merry (both our times sleeping together, we’d done it naked) at the same time being appropriate for me to sleep in with Merry and with my kid in the house.

Since I likely didn’t even own such a miraculous piece of clothing, I dragged out some drawstring pajama shorts, a tank, tugged off my clothes, and yanked them on.

I struggled out to the bathroom as Ethan was hitting his room.

“’Night again, Mom,” he bid me.

“Sleep good, kid,” I returned.

“You too,” he said then, “’Night, Merry. Can’t wait for waffles.”

“Me either, bud. Sleep tight.”

I glanced at Merry briefly, went into the bathroom, turned on the light, and shut the door.

I listed around doing my business, put zero effort in brushing my teeth (but I still managed to drag the toothbrush around), rinsed, spit, decided my makeup could stay on, and left the bathroom.

I hit my bedroom to see Merry getting up from the bed, shirt off, socks off, belt undone, and this made me partially rally.

The problem with that was he just grinned at me and walked out of the room, so his chest and the hair on his stomach with the arrow pointing to good things walked out of the room with him.

So I lurched to the bed, threw back my Janis Joplin covers, and did a face-plant in it.

I was snoozing when I felt the bed move, the dim of the lights on my eyelids disappearing completely because Merry turned out the light. Then he fitted the line of his lean, warm, hard body into mine, spooning me.

“Thanks for pizza,” I muttered sleepily into the dark.

He hauled me close with his arm around my belly.

“Shut up, brown eyes, and stop thankin’ me for everything.”