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My ex-wife’s new husband was a decent man, as far as I could tell. The kids liked him enough, and he didn’t try to overstep. He knew his place. “You guys have plans tonight?” I asked him.

They both seemed a little dressed up. Pete was wearing khakis, and Andrea’s heels clicked on the pavement as she came around the front of the car to give Caleb a goodbye hug. “She’s dragging me to a dinner party,” Pete answered, tilting his head toward Andrea, who scoffed.

“Dragging you? They were your friends first!”

“I’m just kidding, hon,” he said, draping his arm around her shoulder as she joined him at the side of the car.

The three of us watched Caleb make his way up the driveway, the Xbox cord trailing behind him the entire way.

He hadn’t even uttered a word since they pulled up.

Pete cleared his throat. “He’s ornery today. Watch out.”

Ornery? Caleb was a little mouthy every once in a while, and a force to be reckoned with if I let him have any Mountain Dew. But “ornery” wasn’t a word I’d use to describe him. “How so?”

“Oh, we can’t get his face away from the screen,” Andrea answered, crossing her arms against her chest. “We attempted to get him to limit his selection to just one device, but you can see we lost that battle.”

“I’ll do my best to keep him busy. I’ve got some fun stuff planned for the weekend.

” After our scary movie night, I planned on making chocolate chip pancakes in the morning before his baseball game.

And then, if the kids were up for it, we’d go for a hike in Ackerman Woods—like we did when they were younger.

Olivia would probably grumble about it at first, but she was always my nature-loving girl.

I told Andrea and Pete goodbye and walked up the driveway to the house.

Beside me, the automatic sprinklers kicked on, and I just shook my head.

I’d never been the type to fuss over my lawn, but the HOA had some strict rules about grass maintenance.

The day I moved in, Owen Gardner warned me the woman at the end of our cul-de-sac would come pounding at my door if my grass wasn’t green enough or short enough.

“And if you don’t bring your trash bin in by ten o’clock, look out,” he’d also warned. He even offered to pull mine back for me on Tuesday mornings since he worked from home. Having him living next door was going to work out in my favor, I could already tell.

Just before I entered the house, a car pulled up to the Gardners’. I almost forgot about their weekly soiree in the backyard. That was yet another thing Owen had warned me about, asking me to let him know if they ever got too loud on the patio. But I didn’t plan on being that kind of neighbor.

I was forty, not a grumpy old man.

Inside the house, Caleb had dropped most of his things just inside the door, already setting up his Xbox in the den.

Just off the living room, French doors opened to a little space I’d designated for the kids, despite the realtor telling me it’d make the perfect office.

Instead, I’d put a little sitting area and a TV in there, along with a shelf full of Olivia’s favorite books.

There weren't enough to fill the space, so a woman at Barnes & Noble provided me with a stack of books all the teenage girls were reading these days. Books about fairies and hockey players and werewolves. I couldn’t wait for Olivia to see them.

“I’m about to order pizza,” I told Caleb, standing in the doorway of the den. “You want the usual?”

“Yeah,” he said, pushing his floppy hair away from his eyes as he sat on the floor, his back against the loveseat. “And can you get cinnamon sticks?”

“Duh, that’s a given,” I said, pulling out my phone to place the order. “Once it gets here, what do you say we eat in the living room and start the movie?”

Caleb slowly turned his head to face me, but he glanced at the controller in his hands as he said, “Oh, right. I forgot about watching It ,” he said, barely opening his mouth. “Um… how long is it?”

“I’m not sure, a couple of hours?”

He said nothing, picking at the rug beside him. A second later, another twelve-year-old’s voice came from the TV. “Caleb, turn your mic on, bro!” I glanced over at the TV screen, where his friend’s avatar was going through a series of ridiculous dances as he waited for Caleb to join.

Sensing the discomfort rolling off of him, I decided to make this easier. “You know what? We could watch it Sunday instead, if you want?”

He gave me a sheepish smile. “Okay good, ‘cause there’s a live event in like thirty minutes, and I don’t want to miss it.”

His friend beckoned him again, repeating his name and making strange breathing sounds into the mic. “Is that Liam?” I asked. Caleb nodded. “Well, tell him I said hi. You guys never hang out in person anymore, so I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“Okay. Did you order yet?”

I inhaled, opening the Moretti’s app on my phone. “I am now.” I walked into the kitchen, tossing my keys on the counter, suddenly feeling very… well, alone . This was supposed to be a family fun night—their very first night sleeping over in the new house, in fact.

I was just going to have to accept things wouldn’t be the same anymore. They were getting too old to enjoy spending time with their ol’ dad.

After all, I was just a cringey millennial.

When the pizza came, I set it up on the coffee table in the den, taking what I wanted and leaving Caleb to his game. If I sat in there and watched him, it’d only make him uncomfortable, so I figured it was best to leave him to it.

Tomorrow would be better.

I took my pizza out to the deck and sat at the table, deciding this might be the best time to get some grading done. With the sun setting over the spruce trees lining the backyard and the warm June air carrying the scent of freshly mown grass, the evening felt calm.

And then a bright, familiar laugh rang out from the other side of the fence. I knew that voice. “Xander Pierce, I’m going to kill you!” she shrieked. There were a few others murmuring, but only hers stood out to me.

With a sigh, I stared at the Gardners’ fence, catching the tiniest bit of movement between the slats. Then I closed my eyes, listening to the sound of her laughter echo between the houses.

I hoped Xander knew how lucky he was to be the man who made Jillian Taylor sound like that.