Ezra doesn’t answer for the fourth time when I attempt to get ahold of him, but he texts a couple minutes before I have to go grab the kids from school.
Ezra: Headed to Vegas early.
That’s all I get in explanation about strangers being in the condo.
Ezra: You still have a couple days to figure things out.
I want to cry with his apathetic responses, but that too, would be wasted energy.
The kids are extra lively when they get home, but I manage to get them through homework and dinner with little incident.
When they start getting stir crazy and the volume of their playing grows to nearly an unbearable level, I encourage it. Ezra deserted us, and the man across the hall is the reason we have to move, so as far as I’m concerned, the louder the better.
If he thought my kids were annoying enough to call and report us, then we might as well prove him right.
Kason is still grumpy as he watches Kayleigh, Knox, and me have a little dance party in the middle of the living room. He’s still mad about losing his YouTube privileges, but as the dancing continues, I can see him starting to give in to the excitement his siblings are displaying.
“Baby Shark” is on constant repeat, and as annoying as the song is to me, I imagine it being ten times as bad for Finnegan. I’m a mother. I can tolerate annoying. Finnegan doesn’t seem like the type to tolerate it very long, so that’s why I have a huge smile on my face when the doorbell rings.
I turn the volume up louder and encourage the kids to keep dancing, feeling accomplished when Kason climbs off the sofa and wiggles to the music as I walk toward the door.
My look is smug when I pull it open, but it isn’t Finnegan.
“I love the song,” the pimple-faced guy says with a smile. He wiggles a little to the music as he holds out a plastic bag with a local restaurant’s logo on it. Maybe he thinks it’ll bring him a bigger tip or something.
“I didn’t order food,” I tell him, watching his smile fade and his body stop moving.
He looks from his phone up to the number by my door before muttering a curse.
“Sorry to bother you,” he mutters before turning around and heading right to Finnegan’s door.
The delicious scent coming from the bag makes me even angrier. I learned long ago that cooking two different meals, one for the kids and a healthier option for me, became tedious. So tonight, I suffered through leftovers of mac and cheese with cut up hot dogs and a protein shake for balance.
Finnegan is having El Mexicano Grill, and I continuously grow more irritated as the delivery guy waits for the man to answer the door.
I don’t know why I’m standing here torturing myself, both with the scent of delicious food I can’t have and the imminent view of the man, but I hesitate to close my door.
Finnegan eventually opens his door, freezing with a towel held to his head when he spots me across the hall.
The delivery guy is being super nice, chatting as he holds out the food, but it seems Finnegan hasn’t even noticed him even though the teen is literally between the two of us.
“Sir? Your food?”
Finnegan leans to the side, grabbing cash from inside, and hands it to the kid with a quick thank you. He doesn’t take his eyes off me the entire time, and when the delivery guy darts away, eager to get back to work, or maybe to get away from the weird energy in the hallway, the man standing across from me is fully revealed.
With “Baby Shark” blasting behind me, I take in a shirtless Finnegan Jenkins. I knew the guy was fit because of the time he spent at the gym, but I had no idea he had muscles for days, rippling down his torso. The light smattering of red hair and freckles painted across his pecs only add to his appeal.
“I ordered enough for two,” he says, holding the bag of food a little higher. “Would you like to—”
“Mommy!” Knox says, running up to my side, tugging on the hem of my shirt. “Come dance with us!”
“In just a minute, buddy,” I tell him, lifting my eyes from my son only to find Finnegan’s door closed. “Jerk.”
The words are muttered, but somehow Knox still hears me.
“We don’t call names, Mommy,” he chides.
“We don’t, bud,” I agree as I step back and close the condo door.
The dance party continues, and I let myself get lost in it. I refuse to taint the memories I’m making with my kids with a sour attitude over nothing I can change at the moment.
Bath time is quick and easy for the kids, and I consider having a dance party every night if it tires them out enough to get sweet sleepy smiles instead of endless requests for water and additional trips to the bathroom when I’m putting them to bed.