“I’ll get her,” I say when Shiloh unlatches her belt and curls her hand around the door latch.
Her eyes are on me, misty and uneased. “Are you sure? I don’t mind. I don’t want things to get…awkward.”
“I’m sure.”
I’m not, but what else can I say in a situation like this? Shiloh is my best friend, but some things you need to keep to yourself.
“I’ll be right back.”
I straighten my coat before walking briskly down the paved path. The doorbell barely rings before it is yanked open so forcefully that it almost comes off its hinges.
“Mommy!”
Bella leaps into my arms and hugs me like she hasn’t seen me in weeks before she peers up at me with big, hungry eyes.
I’m a sucker for her begging stare.
“The cupcakes are in the car with Shiloh. I packed an extra one just for you.”
“Thank you, Mommy!” she shouts before she pivots on her heels to gather her backpack from her father, and her graduation outfit she won’t need until this afternoon, before she bolts past me.
I try to act like my heart isn’t pattering in my ears when her father joins me in the foyer. He smells divine, his scent unchanging even with him going through fatherhood. It is as dark and dangerous as ever, and it sets my pulse racing.
“Hey, butterfly,” Nero greets as his eyes rake my body. “You look pretty.”
“This?” I wave off his compliment as if it is one in a trillion I receive per day. “It’s nothing special.”
Nero appears as if he wants to say something, but the annoying honk of an impatient woman stops him.
“I should get going. I don’t want Bell late for her official last day of preschool.”
As awkwardly as I did the first time I left his presence, I wave like a fool, then follow the steps our daughter recently took.
Shiloh eyeballs me while reversing out of the driveway of Nero’s first off-compound purchase. Her stare is full of suspicion, and it makes me super-hot.
After a beat, she murmurs, “That went better than anticipated.”
She can say that. She can’t feel how sweaty I am under my coat. I’m a messy, sticky inferno.
My unease slips away when I peer back at Bella in her car seat. Her face is covered with butter icing, and her hands are as sticky as the cups of my new bra.
I’ve only just cleaned her up when we arrive at her school.
“Yoohoo! Miranda.”
Ms. Croft, Bella’s teacher, waves us to a reserved spot at the front of the drop-off line. That’s how desperate she is for my baked goods. Though she does treat me like a VIP every time I do a school visit, so perhaps it has nothing to do with the cupcakes I promised her class.
I’m pulled from my thoughts when Ms. Croft says, “Oh, Miranda. You’ve outdone yourself. These cupcakes are fantastic.”
“Thank you,” I reply, genuinely flushed from the sheer delight in her tone.
Needing to leave before the heat roaring through my body forces me to unbutton my coat, I kiss Bella goodbye before slipping into Shiloh’s van and demanding she floor the gas.
We’re barely two blocks away when I’m reminded daftness isn’t solely reserved for fresh-out-of-college women.
“I forgot the candle for the cake.”
Shiloh shrugs. “So?”
