by Emma Hart
I couldn’t believe that after everything, the last few years had brought me back full circle to the girl I’d left behind.
The one thing I regretted more than anything was hurting Imogen Anderson. Seeing the way she’d looked at me when she’d told me that a few days ago had cut me deeply, and all I wanted to do was make it right.
I was still drawn to her, inexplicably so. Was it because we’d never had closure when I graduated? Or was it because there was still something there?
I didn’t know if I believed in soulmates or any of that shit people spouted. Even if such a thing existed, the chance of running into yours, statistically speaking, was so minuscule that anyone holding out for their soulmate was wasting a hell of a lot of time.
And if you did, by some statistically amazing chance, encounter your soulmate, it wasn’t like fucking fireworks were going to go off in the sky at that exact moment so you knew what was going on.
Although if soulmates existed and that happened, it would be helpful.
I let out a long breath. I was all out staring at Immy at this point, but she was so wrapped up in what she was doing that she hadn’t even noticed.
She’d always been like that, though. When she created, she shut out the entire world.
A part of me wished I had that ability.
I pushed away from the counter and took my coffee outside to the front porch. Her porch was only feet away from mine, and I waited until she realized she was no longer alone.
She peered over at me from behind her sketchbook. “Wow. Two conversations in one day. I guess I pissed God off when I talked shit about church being canceled.”
I leaned against the porch railings and grinned. “Must’ve done. What are you drawing?”
“How do you know I’m drawing?”
“Unless you’re eating that sketchpad, it’s a pretty close guess.”
She pursed her pink lips, and her blue eyes flashed with a spark of feisty annoyance. “What did you eat for lunch? Sarcasm?”
“No, it comes as part of the package.”
“I think I’d like to build the package myself next time. You should be able to order neighbors on demand.”
“You can. They’re mostly for old people, though.”
“Good. I know where to send Grandma next time she reads the obituaries out loud at the dinner table.” She sniffed. “Did Maya like her pancake?”
“She’s a three-year-old, and it had chocolate in it. What do you think?”
“I think someone needs to cut out your tongue, Mr. Snarky.”
“Says you, Little Miss Delight.” I grinned. “What a pleasant Sunday afternoon conversation this is.”
She rolled her eyes so hard I actually heard them spin in their sockets. “Is this what I can expect now? To no longer get peace on a sunny Sunday afternoon?”
“I don’t get peace on any kind of Sunday afternoon.”
“Yes, but you literally created your peace destroyer.”
True story. “I suppose. As far as they go, though, she’s a pretty cute one.”
“Far cuter than my peace destroyer,” she said dryly. “Where is she now?”
“Napping with the puppy.”
“Let me guess: they tired themselves out running around like hooligans in the backyard?”
I winced. “They didn’t disturb you, did they?”
She shook her head, sending her loose bun flopping side to side on top of her head. “It’s a kid and a puppy. It’s not like an army of hungry zombie toddlers who are descending on the world.”
“I can’t think of anything worse. One hungry toddler is bad enough.”
“If she’s as bad as Grandma, I sympathize whole-heartedly. She cries when she wants a snack, too, but it’s usually because she’s watching Netflix.”
“Look at that. Toddlers and the elderly are pretty much the same after all.” I smirked. “Maya knows exactly where her snacks are, but Peppa Pig is usually too interesting to get them herself.”
She visibly shuddered. “I hate Peppa Pig.”
“You know who Peppa Pig is?”
“I wish I didn’t,” she drawled, putting her feet down and resting the sketchbook on her knees. “When I started the ceramics classes, I had to get familiar with all kinds of TV characters from kids shows. Peppa is one that so many of my kids have painted, and I hate her with a passion.”
“If I was close enough to high five you, I would.” I shook my head. “She’s the worst. At least I broke her out of Calliou before that went too far.”
“Ugh. He’s a little bastard. Not that Peppa is a stand-up member of society, but Calliou is a real dick.”
“You know way too much about this stuff for someone without kids.”
“Trust me, I hate myself every day,” she said. “Especially when the songs get stuck in my head. I put playlists on quietly when we’re in class and I had to ban everyone from singing the Baby Shark song because it would stick in my head all week, then I’d finally get rid of it by Friday only to get it back twenty-four hours later. It’s like Circles by Post Malone or that Old Town Road song. Talk about earworms.”
“The only song I know in all that is Baby Shark. I really need to get out more.”
“Good luck. The only getting out you’re doing is with your puppy.”
I groaned. “I know. I should have known I was in trouble the moment Fran said ‘shelter.’”
Immy smirked. “How did you get roped into that?”
I sighed. “I forgot I was having her for an extra couple of days while Fran and Matt are on vacation. I think she’d forgotten, too, because she said her mom takes Maya to the shelter every Thursday for this free-play thing they do for kids. Long story short, I’m a soft touch.”
Her laughter rang out loudly, and she dropped her head back.
She had a fucking magic laugh.
It was so fucking annoying.
“Yeah, all right.” She rolled her eyes again, but there was some amusement still shining in them.
I knew she didn’t totally hate me.
In fact, I didn’t think she hated me at all.
She pretended to, but she really couldn’t.
Nobody who laughed like that at someone could hate them.
That gave me hope. Hope that we could be friends, at least. Hope that we could turn this prank war into something more like we used to.
Maybe it was stupid to compare everything to the past. We weren’t the same people we were back then, she was right. I had a daughter, and she ran a business. But yet, at the same time, we weren’t all that different, either.
Her eyes were the same blue, her hair the same curly blonde that was either wild and free or wild and thrown into a bun. She still stuck her tongue out at the side when she was concentrating on her art, and her smile still had the ability to make my insides flip all around like a piece of paper in a tornado.
Immy sighed, and right as she was about to stand, her front door opened. Jen exploded out in a rainbow tie-dye dress that was straight out of the Sixties. That or she’d tied some hair ties around it and dipped it in the fabric dye herself.
I wouldn’t put the latter past her. It was the kind of thing she’d do.
“Mason!” She threw her arms out. “Do you like cheesecake?”
Immy’s eyes widened, and she shook her head, quickly making a cut-throat motion across her neck.
“I, uh, um.” I looked between them both frantically. “I guess.”
Immy covered her eyes with her hand.
“Excellent! I’ll make one!” She clapped her hands together and spun on her heel, turning back into the house like I’d just told her she could cater a wedding.
“Oh, God,” Immy breathed. “She’s watching way too many baking shows these days.”
“It’s just a cheesecake,” I said, shrugging one shoulder.
“A cheesecake she’ll force me to bring to your front door.”
“So? If you do it with a smile, I’ll let you have a slice
.” I pushed off the porch railing with a wink and, ignoring her pouty glare, said, “I’ll see you tomorrow with my cheesecake.”
“I’m going to throw it at you!”
I snorted. “Not likely with your aim.”
***
The pops of the popcorn from the microwave bounced off the sides of the machine, and Maya bounced excitedly in front of it, waiting for my word to hit the button to make it stop.
“Pop pop pop pop pop!”
Maya’s pops also bounced off the sides—of the room.
That was par the course for her, though. Children didn’t come with a volume switch, much to my chagrin sometimes. Like when I was trying to take a shit this morning, and she was sitting in the doorway—with the fucking door open because why not?—while enacting out an entire episode of Peppa Pig with her toy figures.
I still wasn’t sure I could feel the entirety of my feet after that.
The distinct smell of burning came from the microwave, and it set off the super-sensitive fire alarm in the hallway within seconds.
That thing was moving from the counter near the door.
“Now!” I yelled.
“Oh no! My popcorn!” Maya darted forward and jammed two fingers into the button that released the door. It whipped open, quicker than she could move, and the door slammed into her nose.
Maya let out the most almighty scream right as four loud knocks sounded at the door.
Of fucking course.
I scooped her up against my body, holding her tight to me, and moved for the door. The kitchen was filling with dark smoke from the burned popcorn, singed crap filled the air, and the fire alarm was blaring like the zombie apocalypse was upon us.
Immy stood on the other side, both hands grasping a plate in front of her. She had paint on her forehead that stretched onto her blonde hair, and her blue eyes were as wide as saucers. “Is this a bad time?”
“Shut up,” I muttered, wrapping my hand around Maya’s head as she cried into my shoulder. “Do me a favor and shut that alarm off.”
Immy nodded quickly, depositing the plate on the nearest surface. She reached on her tiptoes and pressed the button on the fire alarm, cutting out the high-pitched, soul-grating noise that erupted from it.
“Thank God,” I breathed, rocking Maya from side to side.
“What on Earth happened over here?” Immy asked, looking around. “Why is your kitchen smoking?”
“Pop in the bag popcorn,” I explained. “I didn’t pay attention; the door hit her in the face, the alarm went off…”
“Oh, my God. Is she okay?”
Based on the noise that was wailing out of Maya, the answer was no. But then again, I’d heard a similar noise when Netflix put up the ‘Are you still watching this?’ message one hour into a Peppa Pig marathon, so who knew?
“Hey, princess. Let me take a look.” I carried her through into the living room where the disaster had woken Dolly from her nap and set Maya on the sofa.
Maya’s bottom lip was jutted so far forward it may as well have been attached to her nose, and I cupped her chin so I could take a look.
It was a little red, but that could have been because she was crying so much.
Dolly whimpered repeatedly, showing all the signs of needing the bathroom, and Immy moved to the patio doors to let her out. She didn’t move. Instead, she sat here, whimpering at the open space.
“Out.” Immy scooped up the puppy and set her on the back porch, then slammed the door shut.
I shot her a half-smile before I turned to Maya. “Thanks.”
She nodded as if to say ‘no problem.’ “Can I do anything to help?”
“Yeah, could you get another bag of popcorn from the cupboard over the microwave and put it in there?”
“Without burning it, right?”
“That would be helpful.”
She smiled, and for a moment, it twitched into a full-blown grin before she got control of it and turned away. She rolled her shoulders right as she disappeared through the kitchen door.
Maya sniffed and finally let go of the death grip she had on my shirt, slinking back onto the sofa. “Hurts, Dadda.”
“I know. Come here.” I cupped her little face and kissed the tip of her nose. “Is that better?”
She shook her head.
“More kisses?”
She nodded.
I kissed every inch of her button nose until she was fighting back a giggle, then I swept her onto her back and kissed her all over her face. She wriggled and writhed, laughing wildly while doing everything she could to escape my hold.
I blew a raspberry on the side of her neck. She shrieked, finally breaking free from me and sitting up. She was still laughing so hard that she fell right over, but she had enough concentration to just scramble away from me before I grabbed her again.
I laughed myself, sitting back on my ass on the floor.
“Popcorn!” Maya clapped her hands then held them out for the bowl.
“Here you go. And it’s not burned this time.” Immy put the bowl in her lap and shot me a look. “How do you burn popcorn?”
“It’s easier than you’d think,” I said, standing up. I grabbed the remote from the coffee table and put Netflix on, then handed it to Maya so she could scroll through the show.
I took Immy into the kitchen right as the Peppa Pig theme tune filled the living room. If she heard my groan, she didn’t acknowledge it.
“What’s on the plate?”
“What do you think?” She reached over and removed the foil. “Grandma’s cheesecake.”
“Yum. What kind?”
Immy shrugged, covering it back over. “I don’t know. I noped the hell out of the kitchen when she suggested I bring it over with a request for a date.”
I laughed and held up a coffee mug in question.
She shook her head. “I’m not stopping. She’s already going to think I’m here making out with your or something.”
“I’d hate to disappoint her.”
“Kiss me, Mason Black, and it’ll be the last thing you do with those lips.”
“It’s so fun to talk to you when you’re feisty like this.”
“Me threatening bodily harm is fun for you?”
“I said it’s fun to talk to you. If you’d like to find out if the bodily harm is, I’m happy to kiss you and do a social experiment.”
She folded her arms over her chest and hit me with a look. “You’re insufferable, do you know that?”
“I know. I figure if I keep annoying you, you’ll eventually give in and kiss me to make me stop.”
“That’s never going to happen. I’m telling you that right now.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. I can tell you now that I’m never, ever going to kiss you again.”
I raised my eyebrows. “See, most people would hit me and walk off. You’re still here arguing even though I just told you my whole plan. You’re playing into my hands, Immy.”
“You’re really starting to get on my nerves.”
“See? If I keep annoying you, you’ll kiss me. God knows you’re not strong enough to shut me up any other way.”
“Are you calling me weak?”
“If you think you can take me, try it.” I smirked. “I’m almost an entire foot taller than you, and I’ve probably got sixty pounds on you, probably more.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then stopped, presumably realizing I had her there. She looked around and dropped her arms to her side, then gave me the look of a petulant child who’d just lost an argument over tidying their room.
“Fine,” she finally said. “I probably can’t take you, you’re right. But I have a good aim.”
“Immy, your first water balloon totally missed my car. A car. Do you really think you have a good aim?”
“It’s really irritating when you’re right. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Yes, and it usually comes from women who enjoy being right all the time.�
�� I shrugged. “What can I say? I must get the incessant need to be right from my mother.”
“You must,” she drawled. “Anyway. I have to go before Grandma slips Jack Daniels into her coffee cake, if she hasn’t already. It’s book club night.”
“Book club? Oh, right, with the wild old ladies. I kind of want to see that.”
“Be my guest. Come by at seven-thirty, and you’ll be scarred for life when you see what they’re reading.” Her eyebrows went up. “You’ll bolt.”
“I don’t know. I like a good book. I didn’t graduate law school by winging it and drawing wonky-eyed squirrels, you know.”
She sighed. “That still haunts me. It was all your fault.”
“I know. I’m really proud of that.”
“I know. Asshole.”
I grinned.
So did she.
She fought hers instantly, though, and put it back in its box—the one where she hated me and couldn’t grin at me like that.
Our eye contact was broken by the rumbling of an engine. I peered out of the window at Fran’s car pulling up behind mine on the driveway.
“Who is it?” Immy asked. “I don’t know that car.”
“It’s Francesca.” I met her eyes. “Maya’s mom.”
Her mouth formed a small ‘o,’ and she took a step back. “Maybe I should go.”
“Why?”
“Two exes in one room. That’s gotta be awkward.”
“No more so than living next to you.” I snorted. “She knows you live next door.”
“She… knows about me?”
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “Why wouldn’t she know about you?”
“I don’t know. I just…” Immy trailed off, then finished with a shrug.
I laughed gently as I went to get the door. “Hey. How was your trip?”
Fran beamed at me. “So good. And we did the seating chart, all while keeping Matt’s mom as far away from me as possible.”
I chuckled and let her inside. “Maya! Guess who?”
“Mama!” There was a small clunk and the unmistakable sound of popcorn skirting all across the floor.
I winced.
Fran grimaced. “Sorry,” she mouthed, changing course quickly to grab the high-speed ball of tiny human hurtling her way. “Hey, baby!”
“Mamaaaaa!” Maya wrapped herself around her like a koala. “Can I finish Peppa first?”
