Page 50 of Sleeper: The Palisades Edition

I nod. Yes. I want coffee. I also want to lay her out on the table and lick maple syrup off her naked body.

But not while the kids are here.

I haven’t completely lost my mind yet.

“Sounds fun,” I say once the kids have stopped talking. They could have told me they’re watching a snuff film as far as I know. I can’t stop staring at Willa’s legs.

“You sure you made enough food?” She glances over at me, grinning.

“Are you saying I shouldn’t also make waffles?”

“I want waffles!” Summer shouts out without looking away from the TV. Her plate is still piled full of pancakes, eggs, and turkey bacon.

“You guys are going to the trampoline party in a couple of hours, remember? For Riley’s birthday. Maybe don’t eat too much.”

“Oh yeah!” Lucky turns to look over at Willa. “Riley’s gonna be six!”

“Do we have birthday presents for Riley?” I ask Willa with an expression on my face that probably reads more likeare you wearing panties right now, young lady?

“They’re in my room. I just wrapped them.” She smirks at me, daring me to carry her to her room and unwrap her.

I stroll over to where she’s making coffee and reach around her for a paper towel that I don’t really need. “Are you okay driving them there, or should I?” Her damp hair smells so fucking good, she musthave used sexy mermaid shampoo and then rolled around in a flower bed while sultry nymphs did a striptease by her head. Jesus, what is wrong with me?

“Yeah, I was planning on dropping them off. If you don’t mind tidying up the kitchen?”

“I fully intend to take care of this mess.”And I fully intend to take care of you as soon as we’re alone in this house.

“The trampoline place is in Woodland Hills,” she says, dusting pancake mix off my chest. “They’ll be there for two hours, and then all the kids get shuttled to Riley’s house in Brentwood for lunch and cake. So we pick them up there at around two. You need to sign a waiver for the trampoline place online. Did you do that?”

I sign the waiver online, releasing the trampoline company of liability if my kids get injured. Meanwhile I’m doing some frantic sex calculations in my head—on a Saturday morning, it’ll take Willa 35 to 50 minutes to drive each way. That’ll give us maybe two hours alone together, tops. I can live with that. We can get a lot done in two hours.

Happy birthday, Riley. I can’t wait to start celebrating.

When Willa brings me a cup of her amazing coffee, she whispers, “Just letting you know in advance that I’m on the pill. So take that into consideration.”

Fuck me.

Maybe I should hire an Uber to drive the kids to Woodland Hills. People do that, right?

FOURTEEN

WILLA

Oh my God, give a girl a break, traffic gods! Some of us have to get home to get naked with Greyson fromThat’s So Wizardover here!

I accidentally lean on the horn and then wave apologetically at the driver of the car in front of me. One of five thousand cars in front of me. The 405 suddenly got completely backed up about a mile from my exit. Not funny, Los Angeles! Not cool.

I did the right thing bynotdropping the kids off at the curb. I went inside the trampoline gym to make sure they were all comfortable there with their friends, made small talk with Riley’s mom and the other parents and nannies for a minute, and then bolted back to the car while visualizing all of the amazing things I want to do to Shane’s penis. I’ll be lucky if I get back to the house in the next fifteen minutes, which means I’ll only have time to do like ten awesome things to him. He deserves more. Or maybe it’s fine. Hopefully this will be the first of many penis things I’ll be able to do to him. We should probably take it slow.

Not the traffic—dammit. The traffic needs to take it much, much faster.

I accidentally honk the horn again. Shrug and wave apologetically again. I’m probably going to get shot. I need to calm down.

This is going to be the first time I have sex with a guy I actually care about.

The guy I was somewhat mildly obsessed with for my entire adolescence.

My brother’s best friend.