“Hate to break it to you, Little Miss Uptight, but all of those things actually are okay.”
“Thirty-six-year-old adult woman me knows that,” I snapped. “But those things don’t look okay in the eyes of family court, and is that really the example I want to set for an eleven-year-old?”
“I can see you’ve entered the over-analyzing everything part of your freak-out,” Stef quipped.
“Stop being a jerk and start telling me what to do!”
He reached out and squished my cheeks between his hands. “Naomi. Did it ever occur to you that maybe this is your chance to start living a life you choose? Start doing things you want to do?”
“No,” I said.
The screen door burst open, and Waylay jumped out with Waylon on her heels. “I can’t find my math book.”
“Where did you see it last?” I asked her.
“If I knew that, I’d know where it was.”
The three of us headed in the direction of the cottage. Waylon darted out in front of us, pausing every few feet to sniff things and pee on them.
“Does Knox know you have his dog?” I asked.
“Dunno.” Waylay shrugged. “So are you and Knox a thing?”
I stumbled over my own feet.
Stef snickered unsympathetically next to me.
I blew out a breath. “Honestly, Way. I have no idea. I don’t know what we are or what I want from him or what he wants from me. So we probably won’t be a thing forever. But we might be spending more time with him for a while. If it’s okay with you.”
She frowned thoughtfully at the ground as she kicked at a stone. “You mean you wouldn’t hang out with him and stuff if I didn’t want you to?”
“Well, yeah. You’re kind of pretty important to me, so your opinion matters.”
“Huh. Then I guess he can come over for dinner tonight if he wants to,” she said.
Nash was home and resting in his freshly cleaned and restocked apartment. My parents were celebrating their weekly date night with dinner at a five-star Lebanese restaurant in Canton. Liza had invited Stef to be her “hot date” for a dinner party at a local “fancy-ass horse farm.”
As for me, I had a new （to me） SUV in my driveway, and my sort-of boyfriend and niece were in the backyard building a fire in the fire pit while I put away the leftovers.
Waylon was in the kitchen with me in case I dropped any of the aforementioned leftovers.
“Fine. But don’t think you can look at me with that droopy face and get a treat every time,” I warned the dog as I reached into the mason jar of dog treats I hadn’t been able to resist at Nina’s dad’s pet shop.
Waylon wolfed down his biscuit with an appreciative full-butt wiggle.
“Ouch! Damn it!”
“Waylay! Language!” I yelled.
“Sorry!” she called back.
“Busted,” Knox sang not quite quietly enough.
“Knox!”
“Sorry!”
I shook my head.
“What are we going to do with them?” I asked Waylon.
The dog belched and wagged his tail.
Outside, Waylay gave a triumphant whoop, and Knox punched both fists in the air as sparks became flames. They high-fived.
I snapped a picture of them celebrating and sent it to Stef.
Me: Spending the evening with two pyromaniacs. How’s your night going?
He responded less than a minute later with a close-up of a dignified-looking horse.
Stef: I think I’m in love. How sexy would I be as a horse farmer?
Me: The sexiest.
“Aunt Naomi!” Waylay burst through the screen door as I wiped down the counter tops. “We got the fire started. We’re ready for s’mores!”
She had dirt on her face and grass stains on her t-shirt. But she looked like a happy eleven-year-old.
“Then I guess we’d better get them started.” With a flourish, I pulled the dish towel off the s’mores platter I’d assembled.
“Whoa.”
“Let’s go, ladies,” Knox called from outside.
“You heard the man,” I said, nudging her toward the door.
“He makes you smile.”
“What?”
“Knox. He makes you smile. A lot. And he looks at you like he likes you a lot.”
I felt my cheeks flush. “Oh, yeah?”
She nodded. “Yeah. It’s cool.”
We ate too many s’mores and sat around the campfire until dark. I expected Knox to make an excuse to head home, but he followed us inside and helped me clean up while Waylay—and Waylon—went upstairs to brush her teeth.