by Emma Hart
Leo giggled. “Done, Momma. Is this going to take forever?”
“Yes,” I replied, picking up his tray. “I’ll shout when this is done, okay?”
“Can I play video games?”
“Once you’ve picked up all your laundry and put it in the hamper in the bathroom.”
He sighed, but he left and headed for the stairs.
He wasn’t going to pick up the laundry, was he?
“He’s not picking up that laundry,” Ollie said, focusing on kneading the dough back into a ball. “Man, this is hard.”
“This is the best entertainment I’ve had in a while. I can’t lie to you.”
“I’m glad you’re so amused.”
“You just had your arms too far apart, that’s all.”
He picked up a handful of flour and threw it in my direction.
“What the hell?” I squealed, just stepping out of the way in time. “Oh, you are so mopping the floor when this is done. If it’s ever done.”
Luckily for him, I was already covered in flour, or I’d be really annoyed.
“Hey! Have a little faith in me. I can do this.”
“You’re a goalkeeper,” I reminded him. “Aren’t you supposed to be good at this?”
“At what? Tossing pizza dough?”
“No, good with your hands.”
Um.
Did I say that out loud?
A slow grin broke out over Ollie’s face. He stared at me for a good fifteen seconds, just grinning, before he said, “I’m excellent with my hands.”
My cheeks burned. Why had I said that out loud? What was wrong with me? God, this was why I didn’t date.
I was so freaking awkward.
“Just toss your pizza,” I muttered, checking on Leo’s in the oven. It was almost done.
“Talk me through it again.”
I turned in just enough time to see Ollie drop his dough for the second time.
“Aw, shit.”
“Swear jar!” Leo hollered from the living room.
***
“That’s the best pizza I’ve ever had,” Ollie said, leaning back on the sofa and patting his stomach. “Wow.”
I laughed and reached for his plate.
“I’ll do the dishes,” he quickly said. “It’s the least I can do after you literally did my pizza for me.”
“Well, after your fourth attempt, I was worried you’d either ruin the dough or actually make it stick to my ceiling,” I admitted. “So I didn’t have a choice.”
“I wouldn’t have stuck it to the ceiling.”
“You had to climb on my table to get the flour off the light.”
Ollie scooted forward on the sofa and grabbed the plates. “You have high ceilings.”
“Excuses, excuses. If you’re going to wash up, I’m going to wrangle Leo into bed.” At least he’d already had his shower.
“Go ahead. Do you have a dishwasher?”
“That’s not washing up!” I laughed. “But yes, I do. I think it’s half-full with dirty stuff. I didn’t have enough to set it running this morning.”
“It’s fine. I can’t cook, but I can work a dishwasher.”
“If you break it, you replace it,” I teased him, passing through the kitchen to get to the stairs.
“Now you’ve jinxed me!”
Laughing, I went up to Leo’s room. He was already in his pajamas, sitting cross-legged on his bed, reading a book. “Whatcha reading?” I asked, leaning against the doorframe.
He held up a book with a monster on the front without taking his eyes off the pages.
I waited until he looked up. “Are you at the end of a chapter?”
He nodded and put a sock inside as a bookmark.
“A sock, Leo? Really?”
“I don’t want to lose my place.”
“That’s what bookmarks are for.” I sat on the edge of his bed. “Did you brush your teeth?”
“I did.”
“Show me.”
He bared his teeth at me. Sure enough, he’d brushed them, and judging by the lack of pizza sauce on his face, he’d even washed his face.
“Okay, good boy. Thank you. It’s time to go to sleep now.” I patted his pillow and got up so he could climb in.
He tucked himself under the covers and pulled the sheets up to his neck. “The pizza was yummy, Momma. Thank you.”
“You’re so welcome.” I kissed his forehead. “Did you talk to Dad tonight?”
“No. He sent me an email. He had to work.”
“Okay, I’ll text him and make sure he’s getting you from practice, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Goodnight, monster.” I kissed his forehead again. “Sleep tight.”
“Goodnight, Momma.” He snuggled in under the sheets, tucking his head right under like he always did.
I backed out of his room and shut off his light, leaving the dim night light on his nightstand to light that corner of the room.
I blew out a breath. Today had gone better than I’d expect, including with Ollie’s awkward pizza-base making. Leo had hung around after his pizza was done just to watch him fail every time, and I’d taken over because I really hadn’t wanted pizza dough on my ceiling.
I was also hungry and didn’t want to wait for him to eventually get the hang of it.
I could always teach him another time.
Or just laugh at him.
Laughing at him was the most likely option.
I slipped into the kitchen and watched as Ollie struggled with the buttons on the dishwasher. “I thought you could handle that.”
He narrowed his eyes. “There’s no power button.”
“You just close the door.”
“Just close the door? What kind of sadistic machine is this?” He pushed the door closed so it now blended in with the rest of the cabinets and stared at it.
Within five seconds, the machine came to life.
“That’s bollocks.”
I grinned. I liked that word. “Bollocks. That’s a fun word. Why do the Brits get all the fun cuss words and we get things like…”
He stared at me. “Things like…”
“I don’t know, I’m trying to think of the fun words!”
“You don’t have any.”
“That’s rude.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Thought of one yet?”
I opened my mouth to say I had, but I was all out. Nope. No fun swear words. “Well that sucks!”
Ollie laughed and leaned against the counter. “What can I say? We have all the good words. I’ll let you use ‘bollocks’ if you ask nicely.”
“You don’t own the word.”
“I know, but still.”
I rolled my eyes as I grabbed a cloth to wipe down the table. The flowers he’d bought me were on the counter, and once the tabletop was clean, I put the vase back where it belonged in the middle of it.
“I’m glad you like them,” Ollie said, watching me adjust the bouquet.
I peered over at him with a small smile. “They’re beautiful, thank you. They also pissed off my editor so that was a bonus.”
“You want to piss off your editor?”
I waved for him to follow me outside. I didn’t need to wake Leo up with my ranting and raving about my bitch of a coworker, so instead we took up residence on the sofa on the porch. My neighbors wouldn’t bother us—one was an elderly couple and the other was a very pregnant mama with a two-year-old.
When we were both sitting, I recapped my conversation with her after the flowers had arrived.
“You’re telling your boss about that, right?”
I shook my head. “The interns apparently heard a rumor that he wants to replace her with me. I don’t need any more trouble. She hates me just for existing.”
“But she can’t talk to you like that, London. It’s out of order. What if someone else spoke to him?”
“I’m a grown woman. I don’t need anyone to fight my battles for me. Honestly, I mostly igno
re her.”
Ollie turned and rested his hand on mine. “I mean it. You have to tell your boss. What if I spoke to him? I caused this.”
I covered the top of his hand with mine so it was in a sandwich and smiled. “That’s very sweet of you to offer, but I promise you it’s absolutely fine. I have no desire to start any drama. I’m a young mother of one wild six-year-old boy. I’m being pulled pillar to post at work and at home; if I’m not writing articles and doing research until midnight, I’m going back and forth to the sports center for endless sports sessions and tournaments for Leo. My family are wonderful, but they have their own lives, and the only other person in the world who has a true responsibility to look after him fucked off to Miami, two and a half thousand miles away, and now everyone wants me to date and find a new boyfriend or whatever. I just don’t have the time or the energy to devote to something I just don’t care about.”
Ollie looked at me for a long moment. “I never thought about your life like that.”
I pulled my hands away with a hollow laugh. “Why would you? It’s not your life to worry about. We all have our struggles, and mine come from being a single parent with a very small support network.”
He smiled sympathetically. “Did your boss care I sent you flowers?”
I snorted. “No. He told me to go out for dinner with you.”
“Why don’t you?”
“What?”
He rubbed his hand down his face, smiling. “Why don’t you go out for dinner with me?”
“Are you—are you asking me out?”
“I’m not sure I can be much clearer on that, London.”
“No, I—” I pressed my fingers to my mouth and scratched my cheek, looking down. “I don’t know. I have a lot of work to do, and—”
“You’re making excuses.”
Damn it. How did he know me that well? “I am not!”
“Yes, you are. You’re making excuses because you know you have no reason not to go out with me.” His eyes sparkled with knowing. “And I’m calling you on that bullshit.”
“You know, this totally fits in with my thing about everyone trying to get me to date. Now I have to add you to the list!”
“What are you so afraid of?”
The lump that formed in my throat was almost suffocating, but I managed to swallow and push it back down.
Everything.
I was afraid of everything. I already enjoyed spending time with Ollie way more than I should. I smiled and laughed a lot around him, and sometimes when he looked at me, I felt smatterings of butterflies in my belly.
I was comfortable with him.
Too comfortable.
Especially when the little voice in the back of my head reminded me that there was a very good chance he was going to leave. And soon.
“Okay, let’s do an experiment.”
“An experiment?” I frowned.
Ollie nodded. “Right now.” He shuffled over the sofa, closer to me, and my heart thumped. “If you feel nothing after this, then I won’t ask you again. I promise I’ll drop it. If you do, you’ll give me one chance to take you out on a date this weekend.”
“After what?”
Hair was caught on my eyelashes, and he reached over, brushing it away, then met my eyes. “I want to kiss you, London. Is that okay?”
He asked if he could kiss me.
Asked.
Actually asked.
I wasn’t sure anyone had ever asked before.
I nodded my head the tiniest bit to confirm he could kiss me.
What was I doing?
I’d lost my mind.
But as Oliver cupped the side of my face and leaned in, I didn’t stop him. No, I let my eyes flutter shut and accepted the soft press of his lips against mine.
And, more than anything, I wished I could say I didn’t feel anything.
Except I did.
And it wasn’t just something.
It was everything.
Tinging nerves in my toes. Hair standing on the back of my neck. Butterflies in my stomach. Goosebumps on my arms.
The intense thumping of my heart.
He pulled back after a kiss that was far too short, and I opened my eyes to see his green-blue ones staring at me.
Then I kissed him.
I couldn’t help it. It was purely instinctual to wrap my arms around his neck and press myself against him, soaking in more of his touch, of the way his lips felt as they moved against mine.
This was completely reckless of me, yet I didn’t care.
Wild abandon overtook me, and I went from not wanting to go out with Ollie to wanting to climb on top of him right now and dry hump him into next week.
“Momma?” The sleepy voice came from inside the kitchen, breaking whatever spell that man had put me under for a moment.
“Oh, shoot!” I disentangled myself from Ollie and ran into the kitchen. “Leo, what’s wrong?”
He rubbed his eye. “I shouted and you didn’t come.”
“I’m sorry, baby, I was outside and didn’t hear you. What’s wrong?”
“I’m thirsty and can’t find my cup.”
“Oh, here, let me get that for you.” My heart was still going one million miles a minute as I pulled a bottle of water from the fridge and filled one of Leo’s cups up. “Can you carry it, or do you want me to take you up?”
“I can do it,” he said sleepily, stopping at the end to yawn. He smiled at me with bleary eyes. “Thanks, Momma.”
“Oh, gosh.” I laughed lightly. “Come here. Let me carry you up.”
“I can take him,” Ollie said quietly. “If you’re okay with it.”
“Um.”
“I’ve carted enough kids to First Aid to know he’s a dead weight right now.”
Leo yawned in response. “Oh. You’re still here.”
“I did the dishes,” Ollie replied, winking at me.
I couldn’t lie. The idea of picking up my lanky little boy was not my idea of a good time, so I motioned for him to go ahead.
“C’mere.” Ollie swept Leo up with ease, and I followed them up the stairs, clutching onto Leo’s cup.
“To the right,” I said softly.
Ollie turned in that direction and walked into the room I indicted with a nod. He carried Leo over to his bed where he gently set him down and pulled the covers over him, then stepped back so I could see to him.
“Here.” I handed Leo his water, waited for him to take a few mouthfuls, then took the cup and set it on the nightstand, making sure to move his book in case he knocked it over in the night. “Better?”
“Yes.” Leo yawned partway through the word so it was more of a ‘ye-ehhhhh-esssss’ kind of sound.
“Okay, go back to sleep. I’ll be inside now if you need me.” Brushing his hair from his forehead, I kissed him.
He was asleep before I’d shut the door behind me.
Ollie led the way down the stairs and stopped in front of the front door. “I should probably go.”
“Um, yeah. Probably.” I smiled at him. “Thank you. For spending more time with Leo. And, um. Me.”
A smile stretched across his face. “Thank you for letting me. And for not letting me splat pizza dough on your ceiling.”
“You would have been cleaning it if you did.”
“I’m sure I would.” His lopsided grin was annoyingly charming. “Does this mean I can take you out on Saturday night after the tournament?”
I pulled my sweater tighter around me. “On one condition.”
“Which is?”
“I can ask Leo. If he’s fine with it, I’ll go out with you.”
“That’s more than fair.” He opened the door and looked back at me. “Will I see you at practice?”
“Yeah, his dad’s getting him at the end, but I’ll wait just in case his flight is delayed or something.”
“Okay.” Ollie smiled. “See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN – LON
DON
RULE ELEVEN: IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK, TALKS LIKE A DUCK, AND LOOKS LIKE A DUCK, IT’S PROBABLY YOUR EX.
OOPS, AUTOCORRECT…
“He said you have a date tonight.”
I side-eyed Christopher. “Is this really the time and place to be having this conversation? Also, is it any of your business?”
“Yes, it’s my business. That’s my son.”
“It’s one date. That’s it. Besides, it’s not like he doesn’t know the guy. I asked him if it was fine, and he said yes.” I stirred my cup of takeout coffee. “Forgive me for saying so, but his opinion is the only one that matters.”
Chris stared flatly at me. “You didn’t hesitate to give your opinion on my last relationship.”
“No, I relayed your son’s intense dislike of your girlfriend. Something, I might add, you never bothered to listen to.”
He paused for a moment. “Who are you going out with?”
I gave him another side-eye. Seriously, my eyes were going to get stuck in this position if it carried on. “Does it matter?”
“If Leo is okay with it, he must know him well, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked him.”
“You only want to know so you can interrogate Leo tonight.”
“I want to know because I have a right to know who’s in my son’s life.”
“Then live closer,” I snapped, my patience finally running out. “I’m going out with Oliver. Are you happy now?”
Christopher frowned. “Oliver? His soccer coach Oliver?”
“Yes. Are you happy now?”
“Not really, but he’s obviously a good person.”
Unlike some people.
Really, it was a miracle we ever thought we could make a marriage work. That was what happened when you were young and dumb.
I couldn’t believe the way he was acting. Our son was playing soccer right now in his second game after winning the first and all he cared about was interrogating me.
Yes, he absolutely had a right to meet and get to know anyone I was going to be in a serious relationship with… if I was in a serious relationship. I wasn’t. It was one date, and I still had my apprehensions about even that.
Although I was aware that today played a big part in whether or not Ollie would stay. He himself was on the fence as Sebastian had reminded me, and if the team did well today, he had more of an incentive to stay and run the teams.
