Steam comes out of the sink as Tim scrubs at the pan. “No way. It was at most high five figures.”

I smack him playfully in the arm. Or I start to, but then my hand lingers on his biceps. He must… you know, work out. Tim looks over at me, his eyebrows practically at his hairline. For a moment, we just stand there, our eyes locked together. Then he reaches over and shuts off the water in the sink. He dries off his hands on a dishtowel.

Then he grabs me and kisses me.

I let him do it. Okay, I more than let him. More like, I grab him by the collar and pull him closer to me like I haven’t kissed a guy in the last decade, which is scarily close to accurate. For a good sixty seconds, we stand in the kitchen, making out like the world is about to end. That’s how long it takes me to remember that my son is right upstairs and then push Tim gently away.

His face is flushed, and he’s looking at me like if I said the word, we would go straight up to my bedroom. “Jesus, Brooke,” he says.

I have to take a second to catch my breath. “I thought you were only looking for friendship.”

“Yeah, well, that was bullshit and you knew it.”

“No, I didn’t.”

He gives me a look. “Come on. You know I’ve been in love with you since I was four years old.”

My heart skips in my chest. Yes, I knew on some level that Tim felt that way about me. Even though he dated other girls, he never looked at them the way he looked at me. But I never felt that way about him. Not until recently.

“I just…” I glance up the stairs, hoping Josh’s door is closed. “We have a good thing going here. Josh adores you. And you’re my best friend. I feel like… I’m scared of messing that up, you know?”

“I agree—we have a good thing going.” He reaches out and takes my hand in his, and again, I let him. “But I think we could have a better thing going.”

He’s right, of course. As wonderful as it has been having him hanging around the last month, it would be better if he were here more. If our friendship were more. Tim and I—we could have it all.

“My life is just so busy between my job and Josh,” I point out. “Maybe you’d be better off with somebody simpler. You could still go out with that waitress from the Shamrock. Kelli, right?” Kelli was a little crazy, but she definitely liked him a lot, and she sure as hell didn’t have a ten-year-old son with her incarcerated ex-boyfriend.