“I wasn’t trying to start trouble, I swear.”
“I wasn’t, either.”
“But I did think…there was chemistry. That we’d both likely feel easier with each other once we figured out what was what. We’d already tried being honest with each other-about where we were in our lives.”
“I’m always happier with honesty. No pretending. Not for me. No faking, no denying, none of that nonsense.” She meant it. She’d lived the Prince Charming/princess fantasy her entire life. She was through with it.
He caught his breath. Or most of it. “Amanda. I’d appreciate a friend. I mean it. It’d be good for Ted to be around another woman besides his mother. I’d appreciate hearing how you think he’s doing, from another single parent’s perspective.”
“And I’d appreciate a friend just as much. You’ve already proven to be a friend, Mike. And it sounds as if we’re both going through a lot of the same problems. Grandparent issues. Ex issues. The same culture shock of moving to the suburbs. There are things we could laugh about. Talk through.”
“As long as we don’t let sex get in the way.” Again, those fierce brown eyes met hers.
Again, she saw a different man than the rascal she’d first met. The sharp lines on his brow hadn’t come from a devil-may-care type of guy. “Then we won’t,” she said firmly.
“We’re agreed?”
“Completely, totally agreed,” she said. “You know the lasagna I promised you?”
“Yup.”
She motioned to the rough wood table on his deck. “Let’s try it tomorrow. All of us. Give me a chance to spend a little time with your Teddy. For you to see my daughter. Let’s see if they can be friends together, as well.”
“Good idea,” he said.
She thought so, too. Until she woke that night in the darkness, her whole body turned on by a wildly romantic dream. He was her prince. She was his princess. They were in a wild, erotic, exotic lovemaking fest, chasing each other through the sky, mating in sunlight, then moonlight, then snuggling together on a tuft of clouds.
Oh, no, she thought, too exasperated to sleep now. She got up, got a glass of water, checked on Molly, prowled the perimeter of the house. That kind of dream was not for her. Ever again.
“Okay. Now here’s the deal.” It was all Mike could do to subdue his excited son. Teddy had already run outside naked this morning, completely forgetting his clothes. He’d been conned into dressing-at least putting on a pj top and shorts-before galloping back out again.
They were digging the water garden-alias frog pond-today. The parts that appealed to Teddy, in order, were mud, shovels, water and frogs.
Mike had set up the design as simple as he could. “So…this is how we’re going to do it. We’re both going to dig inside this triangle area. Nowhere else. The dirt we’re going to put in those wheelbarrows.” He pointed to the two wheelbarrows. “Nowhere else.”
“Got it, Dad. Can I dig now?”
“In a minute. When the hole’s deep enough, I’m going to put in a liner. You can help me. And then we’re going to set out rocks as a border, kind of make a triangle-shaped place to sit, where we can watch the frogs.”
“Ok. Can I dig now?”
“There’ll be a motor. To keep the water aerated and clean.”
“Yeah. Can I-?”
“Yes.” Mike gave up and let him loose.
He heard voices from next door, figured out immediately that Amanda and her daughter had yard work on their Saturday-morning agenda, too.
Their setup was slightly different from his.
For one thing, Molly wore a pink tutu, and had a pink crown on her head, and she did a lot of twirling. On his side of the driveway, Teddy was covered in mud and water inside of three minutes, and had managed to throw dirt everywhere but in the wheelbarrow.
The same sing-song refrain echoed from both yards, all variations of “Look at me, Dad!” or “Look at me, Mommy!”
Her yard had a pitcher with ice cubes and lemonade and cups and napkins.
He used a hose, both to get himself and Teddy clean enough to drink, and then to drink from.
A good hour passed, maybe two. The sun poured down, a hot liquid light. The pond got dug. All it cost were four Band-Aids, heaps of sunscreen, two or three pulled muscles in Mike’s back, several buckets of sweat and a few torn clothes. The water garden was going to be darned nice when it was done, but Mike already knew it’d take eons more hours-after Teddy was in bed.
He stood up, gauging how much more he could get done before lunch, when he suddenly heard…silence. He glanced up, and saw the two redheads standing at the border of their yard. The one in the tutu had her hands on her hips and was staring at him with both disgust and fascination. Molly’s mom looked as delectably dangerous as she had last night-only, last night she’d come undone in his arms. Today, she was wearing white shorts to garden, which he couldn’t believe. And the pretty little bed of day lilies she’d planted looked ready for a garden show.
“We like your water garden,” she called over.
“Your mommy is never going to let you in the house,” Molly informed Mike, which seemed a fair indication he was wearing half the dirt in the yard.
“Molly-” Amanda started to address her daughter, but suddenly the miniature redhead shrieked.
“Mommy! Teddy’s going pee pee outside! I can see it!”
Aw, well. Teddy undoubtedly hadn’t wanted to waste time going all the way in the house to the bathroom when they were having so much fun. It likely never occurred to him that squirting on the back fence might not be the best idea. Mike rubbed a hand over his face, trying to figure out what to say or do, accidentally got a piece of dirt in his eye.
Then the barking started. Slugger had been outside with them, but pretty much he’d just been basking in the sunlight and snoozing-that was, until the Sissy Dog somehow escaped a tether on their back porch and came prancing over, a diamond-studded leash trailing behind her.
Slugger could move fast. It just wasn’t usually his choice.
The girls took off after “Darling.” Mike took off after Slugger. How her dog knew about dog doors, he had no idea, but the little squirt shot into his house, followed immediately by his lovesick hound. Molly tried to crawl through the dog door. Then Teddy showed up and the kids tangled in the doorway.
Normally Mike would have let Amanda through before him, but just then he figured that chivalry was less important than preventing the dogs from having an inappropriate hookup. He might have wished he’d had a fresh shower. That his house looked a little less like a tornado site. That the path wasn’t littered with shoes and toys. Cat screeched from the top of the mantel at the hullabaloo.
The kids were circling, calling for the dogs-at least, until her Molly got sidetracked by a toy. Naturally Teddy stopped to explain the toy to her, and that left only the two adults searching high and low for the dogs-who’d suddenly turned quiet.
“Not a good sign,” Mike admitted to her.
The canines weren’t in the laundry room-which had wash heaped to the ceiling. Clean wash, not dirty wash. All the same, Mike so far hadn’t thought of a reason why it had to be folded or put away when they could both just take stuff off the pile when they needed clean clothes. Amanda shot him a look.
“What? What?”
“Someday your son’s going to get married. Which means you’ll have a daughter-in-law. And she’ll blame you if your son expects her to pick up after him.”
“Huh?”
He pushed into his bedroom first-worried what she’d see-but it was fairly picked up. Just an unmade king-size bed, the sunlight hitting on the steel-gray sheets and striped blanket. “No dogs,” he said when he spotted a jockstrap on the master-bathroom floor, and closed the door as he ushered her out.
There was no sign of the dogs in Teddy’s room, either, but she got a good look. “You decorated to beat the band in here,” she noted.
“I wouldn’t call it decorating.”
“I’m just saying-you went to a lot of trouble. And it shows. What a great room for a boy.”
Maybe so, but that wasn’t solving their dog-disappearance problem. Mike shut the bedroom door to close off another potential egress-or exit-depending on which the dogs tried for next. “There’s nothing upstairs but a big loft-it’s the playroom,” he told her, and then stopped talking, because he heard sounds. Odd sounds. Very odd, yowly, canine sounds.
“Stay here,” he told the kids, which had all the effect of a whisper on a flood. He took the steps two at a time, but the kids still beat him to the top.
Molly, who could outrun a quarterback, even in her tutu, let out a scream that could have shattered glass. “Mommy! Slugger’s hurting Darling! He’s being mean! Make him stop it!”
“He isn’t being mean,” Teddy told her, and tugged hard on Mike’s arm. “Dad, I don’t get it. What’s Slugger doing?”
The loft was divided into father and son spaces. On Mike’s side, there was a computer and desk, battered couch, pool table, wall-mounted TV. On Teddy’s side, there was a town of trucks, a train set, a washing-machine box with doors and windows cut out, shelves with games and books.
Slugger and Darling were pretty much on the line between spaces, getting it on with abandon. Well, maybe not abandon. Darling looked fairly bored. Slugger looked more animated than Mike had ever seen him.
Amanda looked at them-then him-with horror.
“You didn’t tell me she was in heat,” Mike said.
“I didn’t think she was. There was no sign. And I thought she was too young!”
“Um. It’d appear she’s definitely old enough.” Mike struggled to find a positive. “At least she wasn’t a thoroughbred.”
“That’s not the point! She was mixed to be mixed with her own kind! Because it’s such a good-”
“Mix. Yeah, I got it.” Mike scraped a hand through his hair. “Kids, go downstairs.”
“Mommy, make him stop jumping on Darling!”
“Can’t you do something?” Amanda demanded.
“At this point, they look pretty well…hooked up. I’m not sure how to de-hook them. If it’d hurt them.”
“I just can’t believe this,” Amanda said with despair.
“Neither can I.” Mike sighed. “I’m guessing this means that I won’t get that lasagna tonight, huh?”
Princess, Darling, Molly and Amanda were all crowded into the downstairs bathroom. Someone had originally painted the room green. As soon as Amanda could get the supplies purchased-there was so much to do in a new house-the girls had decided it was turning into their butterfly room. The grape-and-aqua butterfly wallpaper had already been decided on. But that subject had already been thoroughly discussed, and they were on to the next.
Dinner next door.
Because Molly no longer wanted to go, Amanda was determined to turn the occasion into a solid parenting lesson…but so far, that was challenging.
“I don’t see why we have to eat with them, Mom.”
Molly, in spite of her current scowl, looked downright adorable in her purple-and-white shorts set. Because she claimed she was way too old for a nap these days, she’d been coaxed into supervising a rest period for Darling and Princess. All three had conked out for a good hour’s snooze.
Amanda wrapped a purple scrunchie in Molly’s hair, making a tidy ponytail that matched her own. She was also wearing a purple-and-white shorts set. Personally, she was a little freaked to do the matching mom-daughter clothing thing, but Molly had claimed it was the “most important thing to her in the whole world.”
“We’re going over there for dinner,” Amanda explained, “because we want to show Mr. Mike and Teddy that we’re gracious.”
“What’s gracious?” Molly studied her mom as Amanda put on mascara.
“Being gracious means… Well, things weren’t going too well between us all this morning, right?”
“You’re not kidding. I couldn’t believe Teddy peed in the yard. I didn’t see his penis, but I still saw him peeing. And then his dog hurt our dog. And then they were so dirty.”
“Well, honey, Darling wasn’t really hurt by their Slugger. That was something else. But the point-about our going, about our being gracious-is that strong girls don’t run away where there’s a problem.”
“Why not?”
“Because the problem’s still waiting for you when you stop running. So it’s just a whole lot easier if you just deal with a problem right when it happens.”
“But I don’t have a problem. They have a problem. Can I put on that stuff on my eyes, like you?”
“Not mascara, lovebug. But we’ll do blush together.” Molly immediately lifted her face and closed her eyes, waiting for her mom to brush her cheeks. Immediately she peered at herself in the mirror.
“I look beautiful,” she said with awe.
“Yes, you do. You look beautiful, but even more important, you’re going to be gracious, and polite and on your best manners.”
“Why do I have to be on my best manners again?” Molly insisted.
“Because they’re neighbors. And we want them to be good neighbors. So we’re going to show them that we’re nice people. Everybody has problems come up, honey. Friends, neighbors, family. Disagreements don’t disappear if you ignore them.” She’d been an expert at doing just that, all her life, and particularly in her marriage. So for damn sure, Molly wasn’t going to make the same mistakes. “We’re going to be on our very, very, very best behavior, okay?”
“Got it. We’ll show ’em. I’m going to be so good you won’t believe it. I’m going to be so good you’ll probably want to get me an outfit for my American Girl doll. I’m going to be so good that you’ll let me stay u-”
“We’re both going to be on our best manners because it’s a good idea. But we’ll talk about that other stuff when we get home.” Amanda didn’t want to commit to bribery. Unless she had to. In the meantime, there was still a ton to get ready before heading next door. Darling had to be walked-on a leash. Princess expected a treat right before dinner. Amanda had to unearth the picnic basket, then start stacking the dinner-the hot plate of lasagna, silverware, napkins, a warm towel-wrapped loaf of Italian bread, a chilled bowl of fruits for salad. There was also carrot cake with a butterscotch sauce, but she couldn’t carry it all at once. Truthfully, she couldn’t carry what she had now.
“I’ll help, Mommy.” Using her most virtuous voice, Molly reached for the napkins.
“Thanks, honey.” Amanda tried to keep the irony from her tone, took a breath, and off they went.
“Good grief,” Mike said when he opened the back door. “Amanda, I figured you’d bring a pan, not a whole feast. You didn’t have to go to all this trouble-”
Oh, yeah, she did. Looking at that sweaty, oiled man all morning-shirtless, muscles gleaming, laughing with his son-well, the whole morning had put bad ideas in her mind, that was all. Unacceptable ideas. The trauma with the dogs was just a different layer of tension. She was living next door to this guy. She had to make it all more comfortable-a lot more comfortable-than she was feeling right now. And food seemed the best way to do it, because he was a guy.
Food always worked with guys.
“It was no trouble,” her daughter informed him, in her best grown-up voice.
Mike, to give him credit, didn’t laugh. “Well, we sure appreciate it,” Mike told Molly with due seriousness, and then herded them all onto the shady back deck.
Not that Amanda wanted to dwell on it, but Mike definitely cleaned up well. A white polo set off his ruddy skin; the denim shorts even had a belt.
His hand touched her lower back for only a second, yet it was enough to put a tick in her pulse.
Teddy had been spruced up, too, his unruly hair still damp and hard-combed. The dog was completely out of sight, although there was a hint of mournful baying coming from the second floor. The deck table had been cleaned off. The view overlooked their almost-finished water garden.
The kids sat across from each other, while Mike and Amanda unpacked the picnic basket. “That’s an amazing project you took on,” she said, wanting her voice to come out as cheerful as a stranger’s. Specifically, she wanted to sound like an unfamiliar woman he’d never kissed, and for damn sure, never rattled.
“It’s going to take a lot of hours of blood, sweat and tears, but I’m hoping it’ll turn out.”
His son piped up, “We’re gonna put frogs in the pond. And then we’ll feed them our own worms.”
“Yuck! Mommy,” Molly said.
“Remember. Gracious.” At Amanda’s reminder, Molly bobbed her head in exuberant agreement. And that was when the whole dinner started a crash-dive that just never recovered.
Her sweet daughter looked up at Mike. “We’re going to be gracious to you two even if you’re complete pigs.”
Amanda winced.
“Well. We’ll try not to be pigs for you,” Mike told her. “What would you kids like to drink?”
“Root beer,” his son answered, where Molly said, “Iced tea with a little sugar and a little lemon and two small ice cubes. But not too big a glass because I could spill it. And I can’t spill it because I’m being extra polite today. Thank you. Oh. I mean, please. Right, Mommy?”
Amanda glanced under the table. Nope, no room to hide there.
Teddy said to his dad, “What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing’s wrong with anyone,” Mike said firmly, and stopped choking long enough to deliver drinks. Everyone but her suddenly impossibly fussy daughter were easily pleased by having only to pop a top.
For a short stretch, food captured everyone’s attention. Molly sat next to her, crossing her legs exactly as Amanda did. Teddy looked at them both across the table as if they were as fascinating-almost-as dead animals. He started a steady round of kicking, only once in a while kicking Amanda-which was far, far better, she thought, than the Armageddon that would follow if he accidentally kicked Molly.
But those few moments of good luck just couldn’t hold. She’d never seen anyone eat as much as Mike-easy proof he was nuts for lasagna. Both kids gained red stains on their clothes, but that was to be expected. One drink spilled. A nearby bee made Molly shriek. Their golden cat with the scary eyes attempted several times to leap on the table.
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