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She shook her head.
“More kisses?”
She nodded.
I kissed every inch of her button nose until she was fighting back a giggle, then I swept her onto her back and kissed her all over her face. She wriggled and writhed, laughing wildly while doing everything she could to escape my hold.
I blew a raspberry on the side of her neck. She shrieked, finally breaking free from me and sitting up. She was still laughing so hard that she fell right over, but she had enough concentration to just scramble away from me before I grabbed her again.
I laughed myself, sitting back on my ass on the floor.
“Popcorn!” Maya clapped her hands then held them out for the bowl.
“Here you go. And it’s not burned this time.” Immy put the bowl in her lap and shot me a look. “How do you burn popcorn?”
“It’s easier than you’d think,” I said, standing up. I grabbed the remote from the coffee table and put Netflix on, then handed it to Maya so she could scroll through the show.
I took Immy into the kitchen right as the Peppa Pig theme tune filled the living room. If she heard my groan, she didn’t acknowledge it.
“What’s on the plate?”
“What do you think?” She reached over and removed the foil. “Grandma’s cheesecake.”
“Yum. What kind?”
Immy shrugged, covering it back over. “I don’t know. I noped the hell out of the kitchen when she suggested I bring it over with a request for a date.”
I laughed and held up a coffee mug in question.
She shook her head. “I’m not stopping. She’s already going to think I’m here making out with your or something.”
“I’d hate to disappoint her.”
“Kiss me, Mason Black, and it’ll be the last thing you do with those lips.”
“It’s so fun to talk to you when you’re feisty like this.”
“Me threatening bodily harm is fun for you?”
“I said it’s fun to talk to you. If you’d like to find out if the bodily harm is, I’m happy to kiss you and do a social experiment.”
She folded her arms over her chest and hit me with a look. “You’re insufferable, do you know that?”
“I know. I figure if I keep annoying you, you’ll eventually give in and kiss me to make me stop.”
“That’s never going to happen. I’m telling you that right now.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. I can tell you now that I’m never, ever going to kiss you again.”
I raised my eyebrows. “See, most people would hit me and walk off. You’re still here arguing even though I just told you my whole plan. You’re playing into my hands, Immy.”
“You’re really starting to get on my nerves.”
“See? If I keep annoying you, you’ll kiss me. God knows you’re not strong enough to shut me up any other way.”
“Are you calling me weak?”
“If you think you can take me, try it.” I smirked. “I’m almost an entire foot taller than you, and I’ve probably got sixty pounds on you, probably more.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then stopped, presumably realizing I had her there. She looked around and dropped her arms to her side, then gave me the look of a petulant child who’d just lost an argument over tidying their room.
“Fine,” she finally said. “I probably can’t take you, you’re right. But I have a good aim.”
“Immy, your first water balloon totally missed my car. A car. Do you really think you have a good aim?”
“It’s really irritating when you’re right. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Yes, and it usually comes from women who enjoy being right all the time.” I shrugged. “What can I say? I must get the incessant need to be right from my mother.”
“You must,” she drawled. “Anyway. I have to go before Grandma slips Jack Daniels into her coffee cake, if she hasn’t already. It’s book club night.”
“Book club? Oh, right, with the wild old ladies. I kind of want to see that.”
“Be my guest. Come by at seven-thirty, and you’ll be scarred for life when you see what they’re reading.” Her eyebrows went up. “You’ll bolt.”
“I don’t know. I like a good book. I didn’t graduate law school by winging it and drawing wonky-eyed squirrels, you know.”
She sighed. “That still haunts me. It was all your fault.”
“I know. I’m really proud of that.”
“I know. Asshole.”
I grinned.
So did she.
She fought hers instantly, though, and put it back in its box—the one where she hated me and couldn’t grin at me like that.
Our eye contact was broken by the rumbling of an engine. I peered out of the window at Fran’s car pulling up behind mine on the driveway.
“Who is it?” Immy asked. “I don’t know that car.”
“It’s Francesca.” I met her eyes. “Maya’s mom.”
Her mouth formed a small ‘o,’ and she took a step back. “Maybe I should go.”
“Why?”
“Two exes in one room. That’s gotta be awkward.”
