“I’m trying to help.”

“Help me what?” I hold my hands out to the sides. “You realize that you’re planning a fake injury to help a woman that has turned me down—multiple times, at that—to . . . I don’t even know what you were trying to get her to do. It doesn’t matter because this whole thing is ludicrous.”

She pops a hand on her hip. “‘Ludicrous’ is a little much.”

“Funny, because I was going to go with ‘insane’ and backed off of it a little out of respect.”

She sighs and reaches into the cabinet for a mug. “Want some coffee? It’s decaf, so it won’t keep you up.”

“No. I’m good.”

“Suit yourself.” She pours herself a steaming cup of joe. “I didn’t want to say anything. You know how I don’t like to get involved in your personal life. I don’t want to be that mom.”

“Clearly.”

She fires me a warning look just in case I’m being sarcastic. Which I am.

“But I do think you and Palmer could be a very good couple,” she says.

She sips her coffee while wishing me with Palmer.

My lips part to argue with her—to tell her that I disagree or that I’ve seen enough of Palmer to know that it wouldn’t work out. But both would be a lie.

The truth is that the more I see of her, the more enchanted I become. She’s great. Palmer is the kind of woman I would settle down with if I were so inclined to make such commitments. Actually, she’s the prototype I was looking for just a year and a half ago, when playing the field—both literally and figuratively—got to be too much.

She’s beautiful and funny. Charming and playful. Responsible and nurturing, and watching her with Ethan? It makes me respect her so much.

And if I’m being honest, it makes me consider what it would be like to have her as the mother to my children.

That leads to a million other thoughts. What does she look like when she wakes up in the morning? Does she listen to music on her way to work? What’s her guilty pleasure?

How does she like to get fucked?

“What do you think?” Mom asks, pulling me out of my reverie.

I snap out of my daydream about bending Palmer over the hood of her car and come back to my mom’s kitchen.

“About what?” I ask.

“Do you think the two of you could be a good couple? I know you said you asked her to dinner, but dinner and a relationship are two vastly different things.”

One hundred percent.

“Getting into a relationship would be silly, don’t you think?” I ask. “Considering the obvious.”

She narrows her eyes. “Well, maybe if you were in a relationship, the obvious wouldn’t be necessary.”

I stretch my arms over my head, more to avoid replying to her than anything. I quickly evaluate my right shoulder as I pull it higher in the air. Not too bad.