By the end of the day, James was more than ready to get home, change into her swimsuit, and do nothing but sip a glass of wine and relax by the pool for the rest of the evening. After Chad, JC, and Sutton had left, the lunch crowd began to hoard in and soon, there was a long line almost out the door. This made both Kaylie and Madison nervous and so Kelvin and Deane had had to come and take over the cash register. After that, the espresso machine suddenly went crazy and it was almost an hour before there were espresso drinks able to be made.  On top of that, Madison, who'd only worked the register once, had messed up four coffee drinks in a row once the espresso machine was fixed and James had ended up having to refund two customers. By the time Lesly came in at 2, James had almost reached her breaking point. She was normally pretty even-keeled, but today had been enough to drive anyone crazy.

"Go home, get wine. That's your only job," Lesly had told James, as she made her way to the cash register. 

"Thanks, Les," James smiled gratefully at Lesly, grabbing her purse and keys and heading towards the door.

The drive home took fifteen minutes and gave James plenty of time to think about the events of the day. Literally, the only bright spot was when Chad had brought in JC and Sutton. And then of course, that got her to thinking about JC and how attractive he was. There was no denying that and she knew any female alive who had eyes could see how good looking he was. But James had shut off that part of her brain a long time ago. When Clay had left the picture, James swore she would not let herself get hurt again like that. Yes, he'd been a jerk and yes, there were things about him that her friends had wondered what James had ever seen in him, but at the end of the day, he was the father of her child and the only man she'd ever allowed herself to love. So it was clear that she would not be letting herself go past anything with JC other than thinking he was physically attractive. And of course there was Sutton to think about and she knew most guys ran the other way when they found out a child would come with the package, so there was no point in even thinking JC would ever be interested. Not to mention the most obvious thing and that was that JC was only here temporarily. 

Upon entering the house, she could hear the television on and voices in the living room. She spotted Sutton on the couch, JC sitting next to her, and they were very involved in watching an episode of Dora the Explorer. She heard Sutton telling JC who each character was and what they did and occasionally repeating what Dora had said on the television. James tried not to gape at the scene in front of her. She couldn't remember ever seeing Sutton so comfortable meeting someone so fast. Usually, her daughter shied away from strangers and the only men she'd ever carried on a conversation with was James' father and of course, Chad. Lane had been trying to get to know Sutton as well, but she was still not completely open to him. James wondered if Sutton would have been watching Dora with Lane like she was with JC. 

"Hi, Mommy," Sutton pulled James out of her trance. "Look, Josh is watching Dora with me!" Sutton crawled off the couch and went to give her mother a hug.

"I see that," James kissed Sutton on the top of her head, then looked up at JC. "I'm sorry if this is boring you. Where's Chad?"

JC shook his head. "Not at all. I've often wondered what the fuss was about Dora. Didn't know she taught kids Spanish," he chuckled. "Oh, and Chad ran to the store to get meat for tonight. He should be back any minute."

James walked over to the couch opposite JC and sat down, Sutton crawling into her lap. She leaned her head against the back of the couch and let out a sigh.

"So, how was work?" JC asked her, noticing how tired she seemed.

"Crazy after you left," James replied. "Espresso machine broke, there were tons of people today, I had to do refunds on drinks. It was just really stressful."

"You don't want to take a nap? I don't think anyone's going to start arriving until later this afternoon," JC said.

"Speaking of naps, did you get one?" James ignored his question for a minute and looked down at Sutton, who nodded absentmindedly, still transfixed on Dora.

"She slept for an hour. Just woke up a few minutes before you got here," JC answered. 

"I'll be fine, thanks for asking," James told him. "You should go sleep, though. There's a three hour difference and I'm sure you're feeling it."

JC shrugged. "I'm feeling okay right now. Maybe I'll head to bed early tonight."

At that moment, the front door opened and they heard Chad shuffling grocery bags around as he walked into the living room. "Kroger was a nightmare. I don't care if they call it Super Kroger or not, if they're going to have it be all super, they should have more cash registers on hand!" Chad greeted them, as he carried the bags into the kitchen. "James, dear, there are more bags in the car. Would you mind-"

James stood up, "Nope. Going now." 

"I can help," JC followed her outside. "So, have you met Lane?" he asked James, as they began to get the rest of the groceries out of Chad's trunk.

"Yes. A few times. He was a big time lawyer in Atlanta and was sick of the big city scene, so he came down here and opened his own law firm, which just happens to be next door to Chad's office," James shut the trunk and she and JC walked back towards the front door. "He's really great. And Chad's mom actually approves."

Chad's mother had been in denial about her son's sexuality since he'd come out after his and James' senior year of high school. She would tell people, "Yes, he's still gay, but I have the most delightful girl that I'm sure will change his mind!" or "Chad's going through a phase but I think he's almost outgrown it." It used to infuriate Chad but he'd grown used to the fact that his mother was not accepting of his lifestyle. After numerous dates with girls to appease her, James had finally told him to stop trying to please her and just be who he was going to be. Lane had been the first guy that Chad was serious about in a long time and his mother finally relinquished and had met Lane a few weeks ago. She was immediately taken by him and told Chad she was looking forward to see where this led. Chad's father, was not as accepting, and had shunned his son and his lifestyle and their relationship was pretty rocky.

"It's about time," JC said, as they slowly walked onto the front porch of the house. "I'm looking forward to meeting him tonight."

If there was one thing Chad was good at, besides his ability to redecorate a house in two days, it was throwing parties, even the smallest of parties. He made sure he had four different kinds of meat - hamburgers, all lean hotdogs, sirloin tips, and lamb chops - and had even bought out the entire produce department at Kroger, or so it seemed to James, because their counter was laden with a plethora of different vegetables. There were also several varieties of potato chips, sodas and beer, and Chad had gone down to the basement pulled six bottles of wine, three of which were from 1999. 

"And this is just a casual cookout," JC had said to James, as they helped Chad set up a few chairs outside. "I can't imagine what he does for a real party."

James fondly remembered their Christmas party, in which Chad had hired a party planner and had turned the whole living room into Santa's Workshop. Sutton had been beside herself and James was a little worried when the time came to tell her daughter Santa didn't exist because after that night, Sutton was positive that she was Santa's favorite and that he'd come every year to party at her house before Christmas Eve came. 

"Oh, it's..interesting, to say the least," James replied, with a soft chuckle. 

By 5:30 that afternoon, everything was ready to go and James had forgotten how exhausted and stressed she'd been just a few hours before. She helped Sutton change into a Smurfette bathing suit and then went upstairs to put on denim shorts over her swimsuit bottoms and a green tankini top. Both of them came downstairs at the same time to see JC being introduced to Lane outside by the pool. Sutton ran ahead of James outside and immediately jumped into the pool. 

"Well, Sutton's ready to swim," Chad laughed, as he broke his conversation with Lane and JC. "I'd better go turn on the water slide." He went over to the side of the house and in a minute, water began coming down from a white slide built into a rock formation that went into the pool. Sure enough, Sutton squealed with delight and went to start climbing the steps that led to the top of the slide.

"You were right," JC said to James, as they went to grab a beer. "Lane's a keeper. Really cool guy. I think this could be it for Chad."

"I hope so," James nodded. "He's been through hell with a lot of former flings." They went over to two lawn chairs by the pool so that James could keep an eye on Sutton. She took a long sip of beer and placed it next to her chair. "So, what do you think of little ol' Grayson so far?"

JC smiled, "Yeah, it's nice. I really like it."

"Really? Even compared with life in L.A.?"

"L.A. gets old after a while. You can only go out to the same clubs so many times or the same restaurants. I dunno, maybe some people like that, but I'm just kind of over it," he sipped his beer. "I'm sure you can do the same kind of stuff here. Dinner and dancing is everywhere."

James laughed, "Yeah, I guess if you count Ruby's Round-up at the edge of town. People go there for line dance night on Thursdays because it's Ladies Night. And we have three restaurants. Four if you count mine."

"But you like it, right?" JC said softly. "I mean, you don't mind living in it. I mind living in L.A. right now. I don't know why. I guess I just want change. I've lived there almost since the band broke up and I'm ready to move on."

"Where do you want to go?" James picked up her beer and went to take a sip. "If you could just pack up and go, where would you go?"

JC shrugged and looked around. "I don't know. Orlando. Maybe Miami. DC cause I grew up there. Or here. Here is nice."

"Here? Really? Josh, I feel like after being in L.A. for so long, you might get tired of here after a while." She stood up. "I'm gonna go get some chips. You want anything?"

JC shook his head. "Not right now." He watched her leave and then looked back at the beer in his hands. He'd been thinking about her since he met her and knew that was stupid. Normally, when he met a girl he found attractive, nothing stopped him from pursuing her. In fact, if this had been L.A., he'd have probably already asked her on a date. But there was a lot from keeping him from the pursuit. For one, she had a daughter and not that that was a bad thing, but he wanted to find out the situation with Sutton's father before he did anything. If the guy was still in the picture, he wanted to make sure all of that was done, although from what Chad had said earlier, it probably was. Then there was the fact that James and Chad were best friends and even though he was pretty sure that Chad would be ecstatic, he knew that if anything happened with him and James and it didn't work out, it would be awkward for all of them involved. And besides, he had sworn after his last break-up he'd get to know the person before just jumping into bed with them much less a date right away. 

Then again, he would be here for a whole month. And that, he figured, was plenty of time to get to know a person.