very close. There was a part of her that desperately wished he'd just take the decision away from her, take her in his arms, pull her close and—
"Mom!!" from the car.
Dan smiled, and Paula laughed ruefully. "This weekend," she said, and was caught off guard when he reached out, trailing his gloved fingers through hers.
Reluctantly, they parted. She went to her car; he went to his. Paula kept looking back and so did he. Finally she had to force herself to get into the car. Austin had started the engine before sliding over to the passenger seat, but the ancient heater was spitting out ice-cold air as it slowly warmed up.
"Sorry kids, I didn't meant to leave you freezing out here."
Austin grunted and slouched down in his seat.
Lissy draped herself over the back of Paula's seat. "Mom, is that guy your boyfriend?"
Austin made a choking sound.
"He is another adult," Paula said firmly, "that I have a nice adult friendship with. I will tell you guys if that changes. Trust me, you'll be the first to know. Now put your seatbelt on."
But she thought about him all the way home. Nice adult friendships were all well and good, but it wasn't friendship that she felt when Dan's heated gaze met hers. And there was a part of her that fervently wished she wasn't going home alone tonight. She wondered if Dan was thinking the same.
Dan
There was a text on Dan's phone when he got up the morning after the mini golf outing.
Hey, just wanted to tell you I really had fun last night.
It had been sent at 4:45 that morning.
He looked at it before his morning shower, and after showering, and while he brushed his teeth. Then, cautiously, he texted her back.
Me too.
Of course he second-guessed himself right away. That was too simple, too plain. He should have said something nice. He should have mentioned her hair, or the way she looked. You looked good last night—that would make her happy, right? Because she had looked amazing, and she deserved to hear it.
Or would that be too much?
He could send her another text. But maybe that would be too much.
But maybe she'd think he was dismissing her, brushing her off with two little words.
It was ridiculous. He felt like a teenager with his first crush. He remained in an agony of indecision and doubt all through making breakfast for the kids until finally another text came in.
OH GOOD, I really hoped I had your number right, or else I just said that to a perfect stranger.
Followed immediately by two more texts:
I don't text people much, at least people I haven't known my entire life.
This IS Dan, right? I hope this is Dan and not the waitress who quit last week and is probably getting a restraining order against me right now.
He found himself grinning stupidly. Even in texts, she was adorable.
Yes, it's Dan, he texted back. After a moment, he added, I don't text people much either.
Okay, wow, that was about the stupidest thing he could possibly have said there.
"Dan!" Sandy yelled from the table, two feet away. "The eggs are burning!"
"Damn," he muttered, and swooped in and rescued the eggs. "You don't have to scream, kid. I'm right here."
His phone chimed, but he couldn't look at it for whole minutes because he was too busy scraping eggs and sausage onto plates and mixing up cereal for Mina. When he looked again, there was just a smiley face icon.
But it was the start of a nonstop text flurry. It took less two days to run through his entire allotment of texts on his ultra-cheap phone plan so that he was forced to upgrade to a better plan with unlimited texts.
They texted each other random comments throughout the day. It didn't matter if it was big or small.
Mina just glued herself to the cat. I felt you should know.
When Lissy was about that age, she covered the kitchen floor in baby oil so she could have sliding races with her cousin. Consider yourself lucky.
And:
Lissy told me a joke today. It's really terrible. Do you want to hear it?
Sure, he texted, in between diapering Lulu and trying to stop Mina from climbing on the baby's crib like a jungle gym.
Why is the baby strawberry crying?
I don't know, why?
Because her parents are in a jam.
It took him a minute to find an adequately appalled-looking emoji on the phone's selection.