Holly shrugged.
“Come on. You always have an opinion about everything. What’s your opinion about this?”
She was quiet for a moment, tilting her head as she slowly moved the putty knife over the baseboard. Then she turned around to face him. “Mom said you should.”
“She did?” He wondered if Clara had told Holly and her parents to prepare them, just like she had with him, or if she had only gone to them after he’d brushed aside her request like it could never actually happen. Maybe she knew he’d need outside encouragement to someday date again.
Holly nodded. “She said I’d need a mom, even if it couldn’t be her.”
“And how do you feel about someday getting a new mom?”
“I think,” she said, dragging the words out like she was trying to figure out her thoughts as she went, “that she wouldn’t really be my mom, so it would be kind of weird.” She bit her lip for a long moment. “But maybe it would be nice to have someone who islikea mom, you know? Someone else who can love me and help take care of me. It might be weird. But maybe I’d like it.” She pointed the putty knife in his direction. “Only if she’s nice.” She waited another moment before asking, “Would it be weird for you, too?”
Holly wasn’t always perceptive, but when she was, she never shied away from asking the hard questions. Questions he didn’t have the answers to.
“I don’t know, Hollybear. Maybe we’ll just have to figure all this out as we go along.”
He looked down at the gold band still on his ring finger and wondered if it was maybe time to retire it.
five
RACHEL
Rachel parkedin the nearest parking stall and hurried into the school. She had told Bria not to worry about picking up Aiden since she planned to be there the moment that class got out. Instead, she had to call the school to get a message to Aiden’s teacher that she would be fifteen minutes late. She thought she’d be able to get off work early enough, but then a client had an issue with the layout of an ad that was super urgent, and there she was, looking irresponsible to her child’s teacher.
She turned down the hallway that led to Aiden’s classroom and saw him standing in the hall outside his door, arguing with a girl she could only assume was Holly. Not that they were being loud enough for her to hear what they were saying, but their rigid postures and clenched fists at their sides said that it wasn’t exactly a pleasant conversation.
She hurried down the hall, but before she reached them, Miss Goodrich and a man came out of the classroom.
“Whoa,” their teacher said. The woman was probably in her late thirties and for spending all day with a couple of dozen six-year-olds, was always dressed immaculately and her hair wasalways pulled up neatly. She was the most organized person Rachel had ever met. “What is going on here?”
The girl pointed at Aiden and said, “He’s being mean” at the same time Aiden pointed at her and said, “She’s being mean.”
“Okay, I think you both could use a moment to cool down while I talk with your parents. Follow me.”
The man stayed in the hallway, and as she neared, they met gazes. So he was the girl’s dad who Aiden said was trying to “take over” the project. Somehow, she hadn’t put two and two together and imagined he’d be present at this meeting to talk about the project, also. She gave him a small smile of commiseration that their kids’ attentions were currently being redirected to avoid them fighting, making it feel—at least to Rachel—that she and Holly’s dad were getting called to the principal’s office.
As the teacher got the kids seated at desks away from each other, working on a word search paper, Rachel tried to figure out why the man looked so familiar. She didn’t have time to figure it out, though, before the teacher re-joined them in the hall.
“Rachel,” Miss Goodrich said, “this is Nick Stewart, Holly’s dad. Nick, this is Rachel Meadows, Aiden’s mom.”
She suddenly realized why the man—Nick—looked familiar. He was the guy trapped in the Christmas wreaths at The Home Improvement Store.Great. She would be working on a Christmas set piece with a Christmas hater.
Nick looked like he was about her age, fairly tall, nice build. He had auburn hair that was long enough on top that it showed that it had a slight curl. It was a color she didn’t see often on a man but went so well with his skin tone. And his eyes were striking. They were the color of the sea on a cloudy day, with a rim of darker blue, leaning toward teal. And right now, she was seeing the concern in them.
Miss Goodrich brought her hands together in front of her. “You probably already know that your kids aren’t getting along with each other so well.”
Rachel nodded.
“I’ve been worried that Holly isn’t making new friends,” Holly’s dad said. “I thought kids forgave each other like two seconds after a disagreement and then were practically inseparable.”
Miss Goodrich lifted one shoulder in the slightest shrug. “And maybe they’ll get to that point. But I think other issues are going on that’s stopping that.”
Rachel could guess what Aiden’s issues were. And they were probably all related to it being Christmastime and the fact that she was so sick from the cancer and treatments last Christmas.
“I’ve pulled them aside separately to try to get to the bottom of the issue. There might be multiple issues, but it seems like the big one is jealousy. And a bit of insecurity.”
Rachel’s eyebrows shot up and she pulled back in surprise. Nick’s reaction mirrored hers. “Jealousy?”
