At this point, her guard had pretty much come down all the way. Which was precisely why she knew she should take the easy out and cut off their evening there. They’d all had fun, and if she and Mason headed home now from their perfectly friendly aquarium trip, there wouldn’t be a chance for another kiss like the one she and Dylan had shared last night.

But when she opened her mouth to thank him for a great evening and say good night, what came out instead was, “I could make us something to eat back at my place.”

Both Dylan and Mason smiled, already two peas in a pod. “Sounds good to me,” Dylan said as he gave her son’s little hand a high five.

The first thing Grace did when they got back to her apartment was open a bottle of wine and pour them each a glass. Before Dylan could take a sip, Mason crawled over with a toy car in each hand and tugged on his leg.

“You want to race? I was going to help your mommy with dinner, but if you need a playmate...”

She laughed, easily guessing Dylan wasn’t much for working in the kitchen. “I’m making the easiest, quickest dinner in history, so I don’t need any help. Go play. I hope you like spaghetti and salad.”

“Love it.” He grinned down at her son. “And I love racing cars, too.”

As he went to sit in the middle of the living room rug where Mason gleefully crashed their cars together, she was struck by how easy this was. The one time she’d made dinner for her ex, desperate not to disappoint him, she’d spent days planning the menu and then hours that night putting it all together. And even then, she hadn’t gotten the sense he was particularly impressed, not when Michelin-starred chefs were much more his speed. Plus, he’d been far more interested in getting her into bed than in eating dinner together.

Tonight, however, it was really nice to have company while she worked in the kitchen, listening to Mason and Dylan drive toy cars on the living room floor.

When Mason crawled off to gather up more cars to share with his new best friend, Dylan asked, “When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?”

“To be honest, I don’t think I really gave anything else a chance. I always loved to read anything I could get my hands on, and English was my favorite subject at school.”

“You probably turned in your book reports early, didn’t you?”

“I know, I was a weird kid,” she said with a laugh. “What about you? What was your favorite class?”

“Summer.”

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so much in one night. “After that? No,” she said as she turned from the stove, “let me guess. Physics. Math, probably, too. Because both subjects would help you make sense of the way a boat moves and how it’s put together.”

Dylan reached for Mason and pulled him onto his lap. “Your mommy knows stuff, kid. Which means you’re never going to get away with anything.” Mason was rubbing his eyes and yawning as Dylan stood up with him. “You’re one hell of a writer, Grace.”

She was plating their spaghetti and nearly spilled it onto the counter in her surprise. “You’ve read my work?”

“I’m not surprised you won an award for your coverage of that huge earthquake in Chile a few years back. Your love for writing well-researched and compassionate stories comes through on every page.”

Her flush, she decided, could be explained by standing over a hot stove, although they both knew it had far more to do with how much his compliment meant to her.

“Thanks.” She brought their plates over to the table. “I can take him while we eat.”

“We’re good,” Dylan said, making it seem like the most natural thing to eat his dinner with a ten-month-old on his lap, just as he had last night at his parents’ house.

“He’s usually already sacked out by this time in the evening. I think he was just so excited by having you here that he wanted to squeeze every ounce of playtime out of you.”

“I know exactly how he feels,” Dylan said as Mason nuzzled his head closer against his shoulder and closed his eyes. He looked up from her son, his gaze quickly shifting from affection for the baby to heat for her. “It’s been a good night, hasn’t it?”

“It has.” She made herself pick up her fork and twirl spaghetti onto it even though she didn’t think she’d be able to eat much with Dylan so close…and so male. “It’s nice having a friend to spend time with.”

She half-expected him to point out that by now they had clearly transitioned from just friends. But Dylan, she was learning, rarely did what people expected him to. So after telling her that her spaghetti dinner might very well rival his Aunt Mary’s, he said, “Tell me about your folks.”

She couldn’t stop the rush of anguish. “They’re both gone.”

He put his fork down and reached across the table to cover her hand. “I’m sorry.”

“I am, too.” The warmth, the strength of his hand over hers helped to ground her. “My mother got sick with lung cancer when I was in elementary school. She had never smoked, but her father had been a heavy smoker during her childhood. My father and I, we were both devastated, but he never missed a beat. He was there for me every single second. We had always been close, but we became an even tighter unit after my mom died.” She turned her hand palm up so that she could grip Dylan’s. “Two years ago, he was coming home from a baseball game when someone who had been drinking heavily at the same game drove through a red light. The paramedics said he died instantly, that he probably felt no pain.” But she had. Pain that could still spear her from out of the blue. “I miss him every day, so much, just the way I still miss my mom. But never more than when Mason does something new, like his first smile, or when he started to crawl. My father, my mother—they will never get to see those things. And Mason will never get to know his grandparents.”

She didn’t know when Dylan moved close enough to pull her against him so that the baby was leaning against one broad shoulder and she was in the crook of the other.

“They raised one hell of a woman, Grace. And you’re doing just as great a job with Mason.”

“He looks like my father. The same eyes. The same silly grin.”

Mason blinked bleary eyes open and reached for her then, and she knew she was going to pay the next morning for keeping him up so far past his bedtime, but she hadn’t wanted the evening with Dylan to end, either. Not when it truly had been a perfect night.