“Well, yeah.” Lips brush my hair. “But also, freezing my balls off for whoopie?” He leans back, eyes locking on mine, his grin wicked and tender all at once. “Smartest move I ever made.”
ENCORE
Jack
The Zoom window freezes, and Sloane Mercer, my partner of almost two years, is caught looking like she’s mid-sneeze.
A second later, she vanishes completely, along with the Hollywood skyline behind her, as my signal stutters into pixel confetti before the app gives up altogether.
I check my phone, finding that, oddly, I have cell signal while my hardline Wi-Fi malfunctions. With an eye roll for small-town quirks, I fire off a text to Sloane that I’ll see her in person next week and close the laptop.
Leaning back in my desk chair, I listen to Hideaway Harbor breathing through the open window of Audrey’s old apartment.
Gulls cry, a porch swing creaks, and kids shriek in sprinkler arcs down by the docks. My second summer heresmells like salt and sunshine and something sugary that’s permanently embedded in the walls.
Probably marshmallow fluff from Audrey’s upcoming Fourth of July s’more whoopie pies—decorated with a sparkler on top.
The door at the bottom of the steep apartment stairs pops. Footsteps. The kind I know better than my own pulse.
“Absolutely not.” I stand as the apartment/office door opens.
Audrey pauses on the landing, a bakery box in hand, the other resting on the five-month swell of a bump under her sundress. She tilts her head, giving me a look that says ‘Hi, darling’ and also ‘Explain yourself.’
I point down the stairs, scowling like they’re a sworn enemy. “You’re not doing those again.”
One brow lifts. A dangerous angle. “Those?”
“Those.” I point at the staircase as if it personally offended me.
With a roll of her eyes, Audrey toes off her sandals and pads inside, sunlight glancing auburn off her dark tresses. Her little blue dress has strawberries printed all over it, like she’s trying to tempt fate into inventing cravings.
Not that I mind. Cravings mean more sweets, which means more of my favorite new morning cardio program.
My wife sets the box on my desk and breathes out buttercream. I swear even the floorboards get a little aroused.
On her tiptoes, she kisses my cheek. “You’re being dramatic.”
I hold her to me. “It’s not dramatic to insist the mother of my child stop climbing the Death Stairs of Doom.”
She rolls her lips. “Is that the official municipal designation?”
Jokingly puffing out my chest as I do whenever the mayor asks me to consult on town meetings, I adopt my most haughty look. “Pending council review.”
Head shaking, she slides out of my grasp and opens the lid on the bakery box. Chocolate, cranberry, maple, pistachio. Sinners in a lineup, all of them.
Plucking out a Jingle My Berries and taking a bite like Christmas came to taunt me in July, she leaves a swipe of cream on her lower lip that qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment.
I thumb the sugar from her mouth and pop it in mine. “We’re putting in an elevator.”
She snorts, loud and lovely. “I’ve had enough of contractors, haven’t you?”
She’s referring to the ten months of renovations it took for the farmhouse I bought just outside of town to be dragged into modernity.
“No,” I lie, cleanly and with purpose.
She narrows her eyes. “You already called someone.”
“Maybe.” I tap the desk, the old wood warm under my fingers, and run through the plan I’m definitely not telling her about yet: construction starts while we’re in LA next week; preliminary inspection passed; the lift cab big enough for Audrey and a stroller.
