Hot Stuff

It’s a quick switch, and I feel so much better once I’m out of my tight pencil skirt and heels, I actually groan.

Of course, when I open the door to exit, Sarah is there, looking at me with assessing eyes.

“Oh hey, Sarah,” I say as casually as I can manage. “I thought you were outside.”

“I was,” she says simply, and I can’t help but laugh.

“Fair enough.” I jerk my head toward the kitchen and head that direction, and she follows. “Listen, I got a couple of things at the store. A veggie tray, some chips and dip, that sort of thing. You feel like taking them outside for me and setting them up while I put my other stuff back in my car?”

“Sure.”

“Great,” I cheer with a smile. “I’ll be out back in a minute, okay?”

She rolls her eyes a little but also nods. I take it as a win. Tweenagers are an unpredictable element, at best. Throw in the dad’s new girlfriend and a kid with above-average intelligence, and things could get flat-out dicey. I’m just glad she doesn’t seem completely averse to me at this point.

She heads out the sliding back door, and I head back out the front to put my stuff in my car. It’s not a complicated task at all, but by the time I grab the cupcakes I missed the first time, circle back around the side of the townhouse, which is thankfully an end unit, and go through the gate into the yard, all of the food I brought is set out on the table, and Chloe is perusing the options carefully.

I head straight for her with the cupcakes, setting them down in one of the open spaces and lifting my face into a smile as Chloe looks at me welcomingly.

She is literally adorable, and I have a feeling her father is not going to get much rest for the next few years of her life.

“I’m Chloe,” she proclaims, shoving out her hand for me to shake. “I know we kind of met on FaceTime, but yeah. Hi.”

“Hi, Chloe. It’s nice to meet you.” I laugh a little before adding, “Officially.”

“You too,” Chloe says with a huge, too-pretty-for-everyone’s-own-good smile. “Uncle Garrett has good taste. I could kind of tell last weekend, but honestly, you look even prettier in person.”

I blush, even though I try not to, but hearing this cute, bubbly teenage girl call my boyfriend Uncle Garrett is like the magic code for my funny bone.

“I…no, no. Regular taste at best,” I mumble.

Chloe laughs, grabbing a carrot from the veggie tray I picked up at the grocery store, smothering it in ranch, and popping it into her mouth. She winks before walking away, and my organs seize up a little at the thought of her and Sarah teaming up on me in one setting. They’re both too smart.

Honestly, I have half a mind to call Garrett right now and tell him something’s come up. That I had to go home to…feed Fat Frank. Or change his water or something.

It wouldn’t be what he wanted to hear, not after being gone so long upstate fighting fires, but he’d understand when I explained it to him later. I’m almost positive.

And if he didn’t, I could find a nice rock to curl up beneath and stay under. There are tons of them, right across the street from my apartment building.

I turn nervously back to the yard to see Chloe and Sarah chatting and laughing animatedly. Sarah looks back at me over her shoulder, and my lungs feel like they seize up in my chest.

Oh my God. What are they saying? Is it bad? Is it good? Is it a plot to bury me somewhere?

I need to know.

Suddenly it seems like being a part of their conversation would be better than watching from the sidelines.

There’s something about the unknown that makes it much scarier than the worst conversation you’re actually a part of.

At least, I think.

I might live to regret this, but I pick up my bottle of water and head for the arena. I don’t know if a lion’s waiting to be released like I’m in a Gerard Butler movie or not, but maybe if Gerard Butler shows up, it’ll be worth it anyway.

I’m a doctor. I can triage a mauling.

“Hey, girls,” I greet, sidling up to their little powwow by the beanbag chairs. They both look up at me with smiles, and suddenly my throat tries to close around itself.

I jab an emergency mental scalpel through it and speak. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“Not at all,” Chloe says, jumping to answer before Sarah can say a word.

I’m not sure what she planned to say, but by the look on her face, she looks up to Chloe enough not to question the direction she’s taken it anyway.