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The doorbell rang. Great, something else to deal with. She was full-up on issues today. She’d get rid of whoever was at the door and then order the pizza that was calling her name.
“Woof.” Boomer leapt up from his dog bed and hurried toward the door.
“Oh, no, you don’t. Get back here, Boomer.” Cameron dragged him into the kitchen. Normally he would climb into his crate without much hassle, but not when someone was at the door. She pointed his head into his crate and shoved her entire backside against his butt. He was one strong sucker. She finally overpowered him and he fell face-first into the crate.
She slammed the cage shut before he could escape. “Whew.”
The bell rang again. “Coming. Coming.”
She opened the door to find Alex and Mariana on the other side, each holding a plastic bag.
She was ridiculously happy to see them both. Especially since it looked like they’d solved her food problem. “What’s all this?”
Alex stepped through the door and pressed his lips to her cheek. She felt like a giddy schoolgirl, swooning because the boy she liked had kissed her. “Dinner. You had that big deliverable today and I figured you wouldn’t have had much time to think about food.”
He’d been doing lots of little things like this for her since they’d started officially “dating.”
“Here, Dad. I’m going to find Lizzie.” Mariana shoved her bag into Alex’s arms and sprinted up the stairs.
She kissed him back. “You must be psychic. I was just staring into the pantry, hoping some idea would jump out at me.”
“Then this is perfect. You get a ready-made meal and I get to spend more time with you.” He brushed his lips over her cheek again, a promise of more to come at the end of the night. That was one perk of dating Alex she wasn’t going to deny she liked—the kisses at the end of the night.
It was hard, each of them raising kids on their own, to find time to themselves. Since the girls got along so well, they often spent time together, the four of them… or five, if Mom was around. But Mom had been making herself suspiciously scarce recently, like at the end of the day, when she and Alex had a chance to be alone. Well, as alone as they could be with two meddling ten-year-olds, the four of them playing a board game after dinner or watching a movie, the girls sprawled on the floor while she and Alex got to snuggle on the couch.
Mom had also given them several opportunities to go out again. Nothing as fancy as the country club, but time together. They spent hours getting to know each other. Compared east coast and west coast childhoods. Alex shared some of the traditions his family brought with them when they emigrated from Central Mexico, and she described how her life in California was so different than Virginia. They even talked about falling in love—with their spouses. For as ugly as the end was, the beginning of her relationship with Josh had been great. Those were the times she tried to remember when she wanted to wring his neck for leaving her alone with their daughter.
Each night together with Alex ended with a kiss on her porch. She loved talking to Alex, listening to the deep rumble of his voice as he laughed, but those few minutes of intimacy before he left for the night were some of her favorite times.
“Mom, come quick!” Lizzie’s panicked voice carried from upstairs.
Cameron darted toward the stairs. Alex shoved the bags onto the table and was right on her heels. Cameron found Lizzie in the bathroom, water pouring out of the toilet onto the tile floor, soaking the bathmat and heading toward the door… and the carpeted hallway.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I flushed a tissue and instead of going down, the water started getting on the floor.”
Alex quickly grabbed Lizzie up and set her outside the bathroom. “Can you get me a plunger and a wrench?”
“Lizzie, run get those things for Alex.”
While Cameron stood in the hall, Alex snatched two towels off the rack and started mopping at the thankfully clean water. Lizzie returned a minute later with the wrench. “Here, Alex.”
Alex reached behind the toilet, twisted a few times, and the water stopped spilling out of the bowl.
Lizzie and Mariana stuck their heads into the open doorway, like watching Alex turning off the water was the most exciting thing they’d ever seen. “I don’t know why that happened, Mom. It was just a tissue.”
“Something has clogged it up.” Alex shoved the plunger into the toilet a few times. “I’ll have this taken care of in a few minutes.”
“Lizzie, how about you go help Mariana with the food. I’ll stay here in case Alex needs anything else.”
Of course, the girls didn’t move, their eyes locked on Alex.
“Girls.”
Lizzie sighed and the two of them slumped down the stairs.
Alex shoved his sleeves up his arms, which gave her a glimpse of his corded muscles as he pushed the plunger into the toilet again. After a huge gurgle, Alex reached down and came up with… a Barbie head wrapped in tissue. “What do we have here?”
