Page 9

EIGHT

JACK

OCTOBER

“Why is there a container of cookies in the trash?”

Jace sprinted into the kitchen at the siren song of the C word: cookies.

“Are there cookies?” he asked, his eyes bright.

I visually examined the other things around the container in the trash. It could potentially be unearthed. “Well, I try not to eat stuff out of the trash. I’m not a raccoon.”

Harper skipped into the room, her most frequent mode of transportation in our house. “What cookies?”

I ran my tongue along my teeth. “So neither of you put this container of perfectly good cookies in the trash?”

“Who throws away cookies, Daddy?” Harper asked, as perplexed as I was.

I could think of one person who would do that, and they shared half of her DNA. I lowered my phone into the trash can and snapped a picture.

Did you throw these out

SYDNEY

Neither you nor the kids should be eating that kind of sugar

Who brought them

Some short woman

…can you give me more than that

Ginger

Mara?

Sounds right

It’s illegal to throw out someone’s mail

It wasn’t mail

Were you ever going to tell me she came by?

I threw my phone down on the counter and peeked back into the trash can. “If we dig these cookies out of the trash, can you guys not tell your mom?”

The answer was enthusiastic.

“We owe Aspen’s mom a review of her cookies, don’t you think?”

I fought a flash of warmth through my body. Mara had done the very good-neighbor thing of not only returning my container, but making something to go in it.

Fuck it. Nothing in the trash around it looked wet and the box was sealed. This was an ideal dig-out-of-the-trash situation.

“Get out the milk, Harp. We’re having a little snack.”

I plunged my hand into the trash can and rescued the cookies, then got down three glasses and a fresh plate. As I was pouring the milk, I shoved most of a cookie in my mouth and holy shit. All my body’s pleasure hormones fired. They were perfectly buttery, sweet, and chocolatey, with the right mix of crunch and tenderness.

Damn, Mara.

I finished the rest of that one by putting my head back and gobbling the bit that hung out of my mouth.

“Fuck, those are good,” I said, picking up another one as I transferred the rest of them to a clean plate.

“Daddy!” Harper said. “Don’t eat them all!”

“I have to,” I shrugged. “I’m the cookie monster. I’m just not in my blue suit.”

I snapped a picture of my third cookie with a bite out of it, the kids smiling with their cookies and milk mustaches.

(pic)

You didn’t have to but they’re damn good

Thanks

MARA O’CONNELL

Quite a few missing there. How many did Dad have?

Do you always follow up on gifts you gave or do you mind your business?

Sounds like I hit a sore spot

There’s no need to be ashamed

(pic of her with Aspen biting into a cookie and Hazel on her lap with chocolate around her mouth)

Okay, fine, Mara looked hot. Her red hair was up in a ponytail that looked thick and bouncy and probably fun to pull.

But it was more that she was beautiful and didn’t look overly posed. She’d had to use her arm around Hazel to take the picture, so she couldn’t have had more than a split second to take it. Her expression was so genuine: happy, but not “look at how happy I am!” It was just a mom and her kids. I couldn’t decide if her earnestness was attractive or off-putting.

And was that a flash of ink under her arm?

“Are you mad? Who are you talking to?” Jace asked.

“What?”

“Your face is red,” he said, cocking his head to the side like he was concerned.

“No, it’s not,” I argued.

“It looks like you got a sunburn,” Harper added around a mouthful of cookie. “You have to wear sunscreen, Daddy.”

I scowled to her giggle, tossing a napkin at her. “Wipe your face, kid.”

I needed to cook up some kind of response to Mara’s picture. I wanted it to be clever, but not my knee-jerk thought of “hot.”

Since when was I attracted to moms who hadn’t birthed my children? I mean, I wasn’t attracted to Sydney anymore because her miserly personality outweighed any physical attraction. But if you’d asked me before I got divorced who I’d be going after, it wouldn’t be another parent. It would be some young hot thing. Definitely not a mom.

So what was hot about Mara? Her openness? Her looks? Some other X factor I’d never figure out?

I could be honest with myself enough that Mara was the first woman who interested me beyond just fucking since the divorce. But how was she any different than Sydney? They were both charming. Something of a loner, though I did see her laughing and whispering with one of the teachers at school drop-off.

Was it that Sydney pursued me so heavily, and Mara could probably take me or leave me? She said she wasn’t into hockey dads. And putting the pieces together, I guess her ex had played at some point too? So she probably wasn’t into hockey guys at all.

Goddammit, was all that shit about going after the one that’s hard to get true?

I needed to get her out of my head, and get out of my head entirely.

Fun

Probably the shittiest response I could have come up with. I leaned against the kitchen counter, staring longer. I needed to show some semblance of friendliness. Some people use emojis, right?

There I was, back on my bullshit of worrying about what Mara would think of what I said. I didn’t need her to want me, but I didn’t want to embarrass myself either. Was this how you used an emoji?

:)

Could not have been a more stupid response. But before I could delete or unsend it, she put a heart on it.

Fuck. I didn’t even think about putting a heart on her picture. I scrolled up and she’d put one on mine. Fuck.

I added a heart to her picture.

“Alright, you two, let’s go get ready for bed.”

But before I put my phone down, I saved Mara’s picture.