“No promises. I want that damn blue ribbon.”)
The porch light was already on, and I felt the day slowly melting off me now that I was home. It was a Wednesday. The Kid had a late class on Wednesdays, which meant that it’d just be the two of us. I was okay with that.
I pushed open the door, groaning at what sounded like a group of small children screaming HAPPY EASTER overhead.
I shut the door behind me and the children ceased at once.
I opened it again, and there went HAPPY EASTER.
It stopped as I shut the door.
“What the hell?” I muttered, glaring at a little white box set just above the door. On second thought, maybe I wasn’t okay with coming home at all.
“Found it at Lowe’s,” a smug voice said behind me. “Let’s see Melanie Marshall beat that. It has settings for almost every holiday. Even National Cheese Day in July, and is the sound of a farmer milking a cow. It’s…terrifying, if I’m being honest. We don’t have to celebrate that.”
I turned around to see Oliver Thompson leaning against the entryway to the kitchen, that familiar crooked smile on his face, big arms across his chest. And maybe there were more lines around his gold-green eyes, and maybe his light hair was just a bit thinner, and maybe he was a little softer around the middle, but he was still the handsomest man I’d ever seen, and even after all these years, my heart stumbled in my chest at the sight of him, safe and warm, wearing a pair of ridiculously tight jeans that did things for me and a blue sweater that clung to his chest.
“Hey,” he said, sounding amused, as if he knew what I was thinking.
“Hey yourself,” I said back.
“Did you see the decorations outside?”
“What?” I asked, trying to figure out if my headache had eased enough that I could try and get him out of those jeans.
“The decorations.”
“That’s super.”
“Are you staring at my crotch?”
“A little bit.”
“You’re objectifying me.”
“Probably. But I’ve had a rough day, so I think I’m allowed.”
“Is that so.” Otter pushed himself off the entryway and walked toward me, steps slow and deliberate. “I’m a little offended.”
“Yeah? I feel real bad about that. Question: how did you even get those around your thighs? And a follow-up: I think I need a demonstration.”
He rolled his eyes a little, but that was okay. He slid my messenger bag from my shoulder and hung it on the rack next to the door. There were little crinkles around his eyes as he smiled down at me, taking my face in his hands. His wedding ring felt cool against my cheek as he leaned forward and kissed me sweetly.
I sighed into the kiss, happy to be home.
“Hey,” he said again as he pressed his forehead against mine.
“Hey yourself,” I said back, because that’s the way it always went. He’d crowded me up against the door, and it felt good being overwhelmed by him. It always did.
“Rough day, huh?”
I shrugged as he brushed his thumbs over my cheeks. “Molding the minds of the future is hard when said minds belong to little shits who think they already know everything.”
“And yet this is what you chose for yourself.”
“Ugh. You would say that. Why didn’t you ever try and stop me? I’m pretty much convinced that it’s all your fault I’m stuck with ninth graders all day. I don’t know that there’s anyone more self-centered than a fourteen-year-old. I was never that bad.”
“A little.”