Enemy Ex's Secret Baby: A Best Friend's Brother Romance (The Solace Sisters) by Callie Stevens

Author:Callie Stevens [Stevens, Callie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-08-11T16:00:00+00:00

19

GILLIAN

We are some of the last people to leave the lot as golden hour sets in upon us. The time has just flown. I can barely believe it. Between Stella running around enjoying games with friends to talking with other parents, I feel like I blinked and almost missed everything.

Not to mention having Axel at my side is…nice.

Not just nice.

I love it.

Despite his enemy status to most of the parents at Seton, he managed to talk them down from skewering him with a pitchfork by telling them about his ideas for a community park. I can barely believe it myself. In fact, I’m a little suspicious he’s just saying things so that he isn’t public enemy number one.

However, as much as I don’t want to admit it, I know Axel. At least pieces of him. I know when he’s being earnest. And the way that he’s talking about the park and explaining what he thinks he might be able to accomplish with it just screams earnest Axel Hitchins.

Still, though, he’s betrayed me before. He’s more than capable of doing it again.

After our picnic is cleaned up, Stella leads us back to Axel’s car, waltzing from side to side, a butterfly painted on each of her cheeks.

“How does she have so much energy?” Axel asks.

“She’s six,” I reply.

He grins at me.

It makes my heart plummet into my stomach.

We drive back in relative quiet, except for the radio, which Axel tunes to a top forty station. Stella sings along to all the songs, even though most of the lyrics are wrong (and given how raunchy things can be on the radio, I’m grateful).

When we arrive at the bakery, the closed sign is already flipped, and I can see Lola inside mopping.

“Well, Stella, what do you say?” I ask.

“Oh, thank you!” Stella cries out, poking her head between the front seats. “Thank you for coming.”

Axel grins. “You’re welcome.”

“Did you have fun?” she asks.

“Oh, loads.”

Stella looks at me, her nose in the air. “See, Mommy? I knew he’d have a good time.”

I smile. “Guess you were right.”

“I usually am,” she remarks and then jumps out of the car, rushing inside the bakery to greet Lola.

This leaves us in a tremendous vacuum of silence I wish I could escape.

And yet…at the same time, I never want to leave.

Being alone with Axel feels good for the first time in a long time.

“Thanks for letting me tag along, Gillian.”

I half-laugh, “Don’t thank me. You’re the one who walked right into what could have been your demise. It was impressive.”

Axel shakes his head and looks off through the dashboard with a soft smile.

“Did you mean what you were saying about the park?” I ask carefully.

He bites on his lower lip and I prepare to be disappointed. Of course he didn’t mean it. He was just trying to make everybody feel better since he had tagged along to an event he was never supposed to be at in a million years. Surely, he would have no way of changing

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