There are a lot of people in the front garden and spilling into the house. We agreed we'd try to keep most people outside, but like always, the kitchen seems to have become a hub of activity and gossip. Chloe and Joey are holding court at their new playhouse with the other kids, even if it is a bit damp from earlier.

Paige and I are trading off hosting duties with keeping an eye on the kids, and that seems to be working alright. Maybe a bit too good. Hard to remember we're not a proper couple at times like this, especially after she was so close to me earlier.

For the last two weeks, I've been working triple time to keep my feelings at bay. Don't touch her. Don't look at her too long. Don't get myself off to the thought of her while I'm in the shower. None of it. Strictly platonic.

But fuck is it hard.

Tom, my old site manager, is in the kitchen when I go there looking for more of the pigs in a blanket appetizer rolls Paige and I did up yesterday.

"Looks like you've landed on your feet," Tom says with a grin as he pops open a beer.

"Indeed," I say. "Next year I'll be back looking for a job, though. Don't forget about me." I crack a hint of a smile, but the thought is bloody depressing. It's another reason I wasn't myself earlier with Paige. Limbo is a hard place to be, and knowing that Chloe's birthday this year is nothing like last year and won't be anything close to this next year is a kick in the ball sack. I won't be here in this house with Paige; I don't know where I'll be.

"I'm site manager of a low-income housing estate in the spring. Give me a ring if you need work. Seems like you've gotten yourself sorted out."

I'm not sure what to say in response. While I'll have a buffer to pay for my own childcare after Paige leaves, I'll still need to find someone reliable and good if I'm going back to work for Tom. There's just the small problem that laying bricks is not at all what I want anymore. Not sure if it ever was or if I trained for it because it felt like the best option at the time. Perhaps another child minder role? Maybe I should be taking the numbers of all these people trying to poach me.

Paige pops her head into the kitchen. "Chloe needs a bottle. She's getting a bit cranky."

"On it," I say, and I start gathering everything. Guilt streaks through me that I was even contemplating working for anyone else. I scape the bottom of the formula container. Tomorrow, I'll have to switch Chloe to whole milk.

"Your missus is well fit," Tom says. "And American too."

"Paige?" I ask, even though that's clearly who he means. "Yeah, she's aces."

"Definitely landed on your feet, mate. Appreciate the invite," Tom says as he wanders out the door. "Happy birthday to your little one."

Maryam comes rushing in the door behind him. She's one of the few people Paige seems to have formed a connection with at work. "Chloe has lost the plot. Have you got the bottle?"

"On my way," I say, shaking it as I follow her to the playhouse where Chloe is lying on the ground bawling. Paige is crouched beside her, but she needs to be lower. When Chloe gets like this, proximity matters.

I lie on the ground beside Chloe, the grass prickly against my arms and hands. She has her eyes closed tightly as she cries, and a wisp of her hair has fallen across her forehead. I brush it away.

"Love," I whisper to her. "I've got your bubbas."

Her breath hitches, and she opens her brown eyes to stare at me, huge tears trickling down her face, and I brush them away with my fingers. A massive rush of protectiveness surges through me so hard I feel like I could run around the world and back. She holds out her hands, and I place the bottle in them. She takes the bottle with one, and my thumb with the other, and I lie there beside her in the grass, staring down at her, as she drinks.

"I think I just got pregnant," Maryam says from above me.

"That's just your ovaries exploding," Paige says. "Happens to me on the regular."

When I glance at her, she shrugs her shoulders and gives me a mock helpless expression. "Being around you makes me want to have five million children," she says.

What she doesn't say, but the air grows thick between us, is that she'd want them to be my children. That is the sexiest thing she's ever not quite confessed to me, and it also makes me want to put her in the confusing women column, which she's managed to stay out of for months. How do I answer a comment like that? I'd love to try to impregnate you five million times doesn't seem like the proper response.

Joey saves me from a comeback when he does a flying tackle and lands partly on me and partly in the grass. I chuckle and drag him back to give him a tickle. He giggles, and Chloe drops her bottle to join the dog pile. Nothing she loves more than climbing all over Joey when given the chance.

Maryam spots Tejinder, and she asks Paige to introduce her to the bloke she's heard so much about. The two of them wander off, and I can't help following Paige's retreat. Something is shifting between us again, and I'm not sure how to feel about it.

Later when I find her near the house, we stand and survey the party side-by-side. Everyone has been fed, and a few people are starting to beg off to return home.

"Five million babies seems excessive." The nudge and reminder lets me test the water. Is it safe for me to banter with her? I don't even know.

"You're not up for the challenge?"

I guess we're flirting. Just the idea that we might be a thing causes a semi to spring to life in my trousers. No hesitation from me—I'd go for her in a heartbeat.

"Five million is nothing to me. I could easily go for ten."

"Would take a lot of effort to get to ten." When she glances at me, her blue eyes are filled with laughter.

"I reckon some of that effort might be pleasurable."

"Only some?"

I want to press her against the white stucco of the house and kiss her until she's pleading for more. Slide my hand under the skirt she's wearing to see whether she wants me as badly as I want her. Find all the ways that'll make her beg for more.

In order for that to happen, I need everyone to leave. Of all the times for me not to give people food poisoning, today had to be one of them. They'd have all been gone by now.

"Suppose we could try it and see," I say.

"Maybe we should," Paige says, but she doesn't look at me. Then Maryam calls out her goodbyes, and Paige hurries over to her as though the house has suddenly been lit on fire.

Her quick departure makes me think she's already regretting the banter we shared. Another notch in the confusing women column.

~ * ~

Everyone is gone, and I've just finished getting Chloe down for the night. I thought with all the excitement of the day, she'd sleep with no issues, but instead she was wired. Took forever to get her settled, and when I come downstairs to tell Paige I'm knackered, she's in the kitchen with a spray bottle and cloth, likely wiping every conceivable surface for sticky fingers and spilled drinks.

"I'll pitch in with the rest of the clean up tomorrow," I say to her from the doorway. "Thanks for today." Without her, I'm not sure what my life would look like—nothing good, of that, I'm sure. Makes trying to predict what next year will be like more depressing. No Paige. No big parties and photographers. Just me and Chloe, somewhere in the world, and Joey and Paige somewhere else. We've got seven more months together, and most days I can shove the end of it all to the back of my mind, but everything about today was a reminder of what once was, what is, and what will never be.

"It was a great day, wasn't it?" She sets the spray and cloth on the counter and turns to face me.

She's still got her skirt on from earlier today, and my fingers itch at the memory of standing beside her outside. I contemplate running my hand up her inner thigh, dipping my fingers into the v there to test her warmth. If I don't go to bed now, I'll do something stupid, and I've been so careful since Gwen left not to let any of my feelings seep out.

"Right. Well... Bed, I suppose."

"Can we..." Paige swallows and seems to be gathering herself together. "Can we talk in the living room for a minute before you go to bed?"

My heart knocks against my chest, and I try to remember anything I might have done which would land me in trouble. Normally, if I've done something wrong, she just comes out with it. Did I push my luck earlier with the banter? I knew I should have left it alone.

In the living room, I sink into the settee, and I run my hands along the top of my thighs, my palms sweating. Paige isn't the type to have serious, planned conversations. Any other time I've been hauled in by a boss for a conversation with this tone, I've been sacked.

She perches on the other end of the settee, and she worries her lip with her teeth.

"Are you sacking me?" The words are out before I can second guess myself. "Have I done something wrong?"

"What?" Paige's blue eyes go very wide. "No! I would never. At this point, I can't even imagine firing you—ever."

I stare at her, not sure what to say if she isn't sacking me.

"This just became really awkward," Paige mutters. "The power dynamics here are all wrong." She rises from her spot and flexes her hand in a stopping motion. "I shouldn't do this."

"Paige, what are you on about?" I stand too, and now I'm looking down at her. This whole conversation is over my head or under my feet. I can't make heads nor tails of it.

"The reminder that I'm your boss. I mean, I am your boss..." Our gazes connect. "Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

She searches my face, and her anxiety is written across her plain as day, but I've got no idea why.

"In all honesty, would you really want more than this with me? And it's okay if you—"

"Yes," I say without hesitation. There's so much uncertainty in her blue eyes that it hurts my heart. "Yes." Hope is filling my chest that we're even talking about this.

"What if it doesn't work out? We've got seven months to fuck it all up."

"I reckon they could be the best seven months either of us has ever had," I say, and I mean that because I've never been able to talk to anyone the way I talk to Paige. "But if it's no good, I've got faith we're adult enough to do what needs to be done to get us through. We know how we end, don't we? It's just what happens between now and then that we get to decide." Even if things go really well, she can't stay forever, and I can't even begin to imagine leaving England. This is what we get. Right now. "How do you want the next seven months to be?"

For me, there's no question. At the end of our year together, Paige and Joey will return to America, and Chloe and I will be here, muddling through. When I'm an old man, I'll have these memories with her, and I've got no doubt they're gonna be good ones. It's just whether or not she's like me and she sees the reward as so much greater than the risk.

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