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He sits up so he can hold my face in his hands, as he stares into my eyes. “You promise?”
I draw an X over my chest. “Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.” I grin at him. “Let’s go home. I’ll beat you at Go Fish.” I shove his butt off my lap, and he jumps to his feet.
He walks ahead of me and Ethan, and Ethan threads his fingers through mine. “You okay with all the mom talk?”
The tender spot in my heart that I thought was dead feels like he just poked it. It’s most definitely alive. “I would be his mom today if I could.”
He nods. “He’d like that.”
“How about you?” I tug on his hand and hold my breath while I wait for his answer.
“If your divorce was final, I’d have already married you two or three times over.”
“I’m going to need to find a job soon.” I look up at him. “Should I try to find one here?”
“I’ll go wherever you want to go. Here. There. Doesn’t matter. Mitchell and I will follow.”
I don’t even have to think about it. “I think the less upheaval for Mitchell the better. So I think we should stay here.”
“We’ll need a bigger house.” He looks down at me. “You know, in case you want to get knocked up.” He grins.
My heart trips a beat in my chest. “Do you want to knock me up?”
He grins even bigger. “Do you want to be knocked up?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But I’d be willing to think about it.”
“It doesn’t have to be right away,” he says. “We’ll have time.” He brushes a lock of hair behind my ear.
I hear the screen door slam and Mitchell runs out onto the porch, holding a deck of cards. “I’m going to beat you so bad,” he says.
“He’s an even worse loser than you are, I’m afraid,” Ethan supplies.
“I am not a poor loser! I just like to win, that’s all,” I mutter more to myself than to him.
He laughs and walks over to where Mitchell is already dealing cards at the picnic table. “Did you stack the deck again?” he asks. Mitchell says nothing, just continues to deal out cards.
I sit down across from him. “There shall be no cheating,” I declare to no one in particular. “And no stacking the deck. Those are the rules. Anyone found to be breaking the rules is out of the game.”
Mitchell grumbles and picks all the cards back up, passes them to his dad, and Ethan reshuffles them.
“My God,” Ethan breathes near my ear. “It’s like you’re his mother or something.” He elbows me in the side, and I pick up my hand, organize my cards, and get ready to beat them both.
Gran doesn’t come home until around midnight. I know the time because I hear the gravel crunch under the wheels of the golf cart. I watch from my window as Mr. Jacobson helps her out of the golf cart, tucks her hand into his elbow, and walks with her to the front door. He takes her hand and lifts it to his lips for a kiss as Gran titters nervously.
She goes inside and closes the door. I walk out onto Ethan’s front porch and sit down on the top step. She comes out again, walks over to where I’m sitting, and settles down next to me.
“Have a good night?” I ask with what I know she would think a cheeky grin on my face.
“The ice cream was delicious.”
I glance down at my naked wrist, as though there were a watch there. “You ate ice cream for four hours?”
“Yes. And we talked.”
I gently bump her shoulder with mine. “He kissed you, didn’t he?”
She snorts. “Some lines are not to be crossed, Abigail,” she says. She gets up and dusts her butt off.
