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Cate chuckled. “I don’t know if you know this, but there’s a whole group of young retirees who hang out together. You’d think they were teenagers again with everything they get up to.”
“I maybe don’t want to know more about what they’re doing with their friends.” She cringed.
Cate regarded her with a glint in her eye. “So how about Toronto men? I bet the dating scene is amazing.”
“Ugh.” Kylie winced to think about it. “I went on a lot of first dates. And maybe a handful of second dates.”
“Really? No real estate tycoon boyfriend?” Cate gave her a Cheshire cat grin.
“Again, some first dates with a few. All handsome. All successful. All very impressed with themselves.”
“Are you fishing for sympathy?” Cate put her hands on her hips.
“Not at all.” She threw up a hand. “I only ever meet guys at clubs, and there’s a certain kind of guy who frequents clubs I guess.”
“Ah yes. The Jean-Ralphios of the world.”
Kylie burst out laughing, and Cate joined in until Charlie barged in the screen door announcing that the hamburgers were ready.
~ * ~
Dinner with Kylie wasn’t nearly as awkward as Derek feared. In fact, Charlie carried most of the conversation, filling her in on everything from the names of the kids in his preschool class, to the frog he found in the backyard last week, to the time he threw up in the pharmacy when he had the flu. She was thoroughly engrossed in his stories, asking him questions, and even remembering the names of all his friends. She and Charlie fit.
“What’s it like living in Toronto?” Cate asked.
Derek was glad she did because he was curious, but there was no way he was going to bring up Toronto again with Kylie.
“It was…loud. And there’s a lot to do, but almost too much if that makes sense. Like I would be at one thing, say at a pub watching a band, but I’d be wondering what I was missing out on at the art exhibit some friends attended. The constant FOMO was a little exhausting.”
“I think I would get far too overwhelmed there. Though I’ve always wanted to go and see the National Ballet.” Cate’s eyes shone as she rested her chin on her hand.
“If you plan it right, you could get there without dealing with too much of the overwhelming bits. I could help you map it out sometime.”
Cate sat up. “Really? That would be amazing.”
“For sure. I’ll even tell you how to avoid all the Jean-Ralphios.”
“But find all the Bens?”
“You got it.”
Cate and Kylie clearly had some inside joke going on he wasn’t following, so Derek relaxed while they chatted.
At the end of the meal, Kylie offered to help clean up, but Cate insisted Charlie needed to go to bed and shooed her out the door, with Derek to take her home.
When they both stepped into the unseasonably warm evening air, she turned to him. “I don’t really need an escort home. It’s eight o’clock in Camden. I’m fairly confident walking myself.”
“Yes, well I don’t feel particularly confident about going back in and getting a lecture about being a gentleman from Cate, so here we are.” He waved his hands in a flourish.
Kylie laughed. “Sounds fair. She’s grown up quite sure of herself.” They turned from the driveway onto the sidewalk.
“That she has.” He nodded. “She’s had to, really, being on her own as a young mom.”
“True,” she said, but then she shined that bright smile on him and made his heart tug the way it did in high school. “But she’s hardly alone. Charlie adores you.”
Derek couldn’t hold back the joy on his face. “I had no idea how much I could love another person until I first laid eyes on that kid.” He had built some serious walls in the past few years, until that tiny hand grabbed on to his finger for the first time, and all of his hardness had melted away.
Kylie wrapped the plaid jacket that must’ve been her dad’s tighter around herself. “If it’s not too weird to ask, why is Cate living with you? Where is Charlie’s father?”
