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Lucia and Sophie are hugging goodbye, and I can hear them talking about exchanging friend codes on the Switch, but it falls to the wayside when Camila leans in to murmur in my ear, “Jesus Christ, Cassie. If you aren’t hitting that, then you should be arrested.”
I bark out a laugh. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“It’s a crime against humanity. Think of the rest of us. Swamped. Overworked. Dickless.”
“Okay, we are leaving now.”
“I’m just saying—”
I throw my arms around her neck for a hug. “Thanks for today. It was great.”
“Apparently the kids are ride or die now, so we’ll have to do it again.”
“Right.”
Camila lowers her voice again. “And Isincerelyhope that you have locked down that dad di—”
“Okay, girls!” I pull away from Camila. “Time for Sophie and me to go. But we’ll hang out again soon, okay?”
They both nod and hug goodbye again, Sophie waving back at Lucia as I help her in the car.
“I really am sorry I was late,” Aiden says again as we all buckle up. “I should have left a little earlier.”
“It’s fine,” I assure him. “We weren’t waiting long.”
“I’ll have to head back for a while after I drop you guys off.”
“I figured,” I say.
Aiden looks in the rearview mirror as he pulls away from the curb. “Did you have fun today?”
“Somuch fun,” Sophie gushes. “Did you know that hippos murder people?”
I groan, and Aiden gives me a strange look from the side.
“Don’t ask,” I say. “Don’t ask.”
—
I help Sophie out of the car when we pull up outside of the house, making sure she has her bag of souvenirs before she starts up the walkway. She turns back to look at me halfway. “Are you coming?”
“Just a sec,” I call after her. “I need to tell your dad something.”
“Okay, but you promised to do the kangaroo puzzle with me.”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re going to do the puzzle.”
I wait until she disappears through the front door before I crawl back into the passenger’s side of the front seat, pushing over the middle console and cupping my hands to Aiden’s face to pull him in for a kiss. There is a moment of surprise on his part that dissolves quickly, and then I feel his fingers in my hair and his tongue at my lower lip before it dips inside to touch mine.
I kiss himhard, much harder than feels appropriate for the inside of a car in the middle of the street—but I decide I don’t care. I had a phenomenal day with a phenomenal kid, and now I’m being carted home by a phenomenal man who lets me attack him with kisses out of nowhere.
Things could be a lot worse.
He looks a little dazed when I break away. “What was that for?”
“Because you’re great.”
He blinks. “I am?”
