Music helped for an hour or two, but once Nora settled into the rhythm of the work, the swish and whoosh of the roller brush on the wall, her mind wandered again to the warnings Mercedes had given her.

She would face a difficult choice. She would make the wrong choice. Innocent people would be hurt. And it was a man who would lead her astray.

It was that last part that turned Nora into a skeptic. Deep down, she knew she was perfectly capable of fucking up royally and hurting people without even realizing what she’d done. She’d been that person more times than she wanted to think about. But the men in her life? Søren. Nico. Kingsley. Cyrus. Gmork?

Nico was in France and wasn’t even aware of what was happening right now. Nora would tell him, but only when she had more answers than questions.

Kingsley? True, he was a reformed rake, minus the reformed part, but he was protective of the women in life—especially Juliette and Céleste but her, too.

Cyrus? Cyrus was up to his eyeballs in love, lust, and adoration of his fiancée. He wouldn’t do anything to mess things up with Paulina, much less lead Nora “astray.”

And Søren? He would die for her, plain and simple. He would never talk her out of doing the right thing or into doing the wrong thing.

Would he? Not on purpose anyway.

She was fairly sure she was hallucinating again when she received a text message from Cyrus that read, Emma Stone wants to fuck your Viking.

Nora left the nursery and went out to the backyard to breathe some fresh air and make sure she’d read that right.

She had.

Therefore she replied, Do I get to watch?

You’re as crazy as he is.

I warned you about the running thing. But no, you didn’t want to listen to me.

Yeah, you warned me. That’s on me. Call me.

Nora called him.

“What’s up?” she asked him. “Wait. How sure are you this phone call is actually happening?”

“Ninety percent. Why do you ask?”

“I’ve been inhaling a lot of paint fumes. Oil paint. I’m not sure about reality at the moment. Not that I’m complaining.”

“You’re not even gonna ask me about Emma Stone?”

“Sexy young redhead with good tits flirted with Søren while you two were running this morning?”

“How’d you guess?”

“Either Søren has a thing for redheads or redheads have a thing for Søren, I swear. You should have seen it when he and Kingsley played on the same team in church league soccer. Women would slide off the bleachers.”

“I don’t need that image in my head.”

“Sorry. Blame the paint fumes for that. Trying to get the nursery done. Wanna come help?” she asked, her voice bright and obnoxious as a fluorescent light.

“Yeah, no. Just calling to tell you your Viking says we can keep working together.”

“So the fellowship of the cock rings isn’t breaking up?”