Three Strikes and You're Mine

by R.S. Grey

I was about to say worries, but ha ha, I have plenty of those.

“That could be my problem. I don’t have enough going on. I need grandkids.”

“I want you to know why, even though it’s completely obvious that I’ve got a big ol’ embarrassing crush on you, I haven’t acted on it.”

“I am insanely, annoyingly, couldn’t-stop-if-I-tried attracted to you. I have thought about kissing you a hundred times in a hundred ways.”

“Okay, new plan,” she quips. “I’ll quit and make this easier on us.” The suggestion sends a fissure of panic through me. “No.” “You could fire me?” “I’m not firing you.” She sighs lightly. “Oh, all right. Amnesia it is.”

I break records on that run. It’s my best time ever. A perk of (literally) running from your problems.

I am slack-jawed among the cucumbers. The tomatoes are shaking their heads at me like, Girl, you’re in trouble.

Luke’s just on the outside of the open porch door with a towel slung low around his hips. Water drips down onto the wood at his feet. It also slides across his broad chest and wide shoulders, but now’s not the time to get lightheaded, so I peel my eyes away fast.

didn’t want to take any chances. Also, it’s my fictional scenario—why should I be friend-zoned?”

In my opinion, it’s not that easy being a kid. Being told what to do all the time, following directions, sitting still, minding your manners—it all gets to be too much sometimes. If Harper can’t express her feelings here, at home where she feels safe, where can she?

You’re a three scoops of sugar kind of girl, Chloe. And you’re mine.

The crushing weight of a child’s love isn’t crushing at all. It’s weightless. Termless. Restriction-less.