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“Don’t you dare hang up on…”

I hung up. But I was smiling.

13

— • —

Sam

Tyson showed up at my door at four-thirty, looking harried and holding his phone between his shoulder and ear while juggling his tool belt and what appeared to be Noa’s entire craft supply collection.

“The Hendersons’ roof decided today was the day to give up on life,” he said after ending his call. “Water pouring into their master bedroom. Could you please…? Noa… I need to…”

I snorted. “Go. I’ll watch Noa.”

“You sure? I know we planned to stay here tonight…”

“Tyson. Go fix the roof. Noa and I will be fine.”

He shifted his weight, clearly torn between the emergency job and whatever protective instinct had kicked in since this morning’s rose incident. “You could stay at my place. There are cameras there already. Full security system. I installed it after…”

“After your ex left.” I finished when he trailed off. “Yeah, that sounds good actually.”

Relief washed over his face. “Really?”

“Your house doesn’t smell like funeral flowers and stalker desperation, so yeah. Better option.”

“The spare key is under the fake rock by the steps. Thank you, Sam.”

“Don’t mention it.” I smiled softly at him, which made him stare at me in silence for an entire minute.

“Right.” He cleared his throat when he snapped back, and handed over the craft supplies, which seemed to include enough glitter to bedazzle a small country. “I don’t know how much time this will take me, but just in case, Noa’s bedtime is eight. Eight-thirty if she negotiates well. No sugar after six, she brushes her teeth for two minutes exactly or she’ll tell you it doesn’t count, and whatever you do, don’t let her con you into reading more than three books.”

“Got it. Anything else?”

“Yeah.” He paused at my door, looking back. “Thank you again for this.”

I waved my hand at him. “Go fix things.”

***

Twenty minutes later, I was standing in Tyson’s living room while Noa gave me the grand tour with the seriousness of a tiny museum curator.

“This is where Daddy sleeps when he falls asleep watching boring shows,” she pointed at the couch. “And this is where I’m not supposed to color but sometimes I do anyway. And this is the kitchen where we make pancakes and also where Daddy burned eggs so bad the smoke thingy screamed.”

“Smoke detector?”

“That’s the one. It was SO loud. Like EEEEEEEEE.” She demonstrated at a volume that probably violated noise ordinances. “Do you burn eggs?”

“Never tried. Should we find out?”

“No thank you. Want to make real cookies?”

“Can we make real cookies?”

“Daddy has the stuff. He bought it last week but then he read the ‘structions and said a bad word and put it away.”

I snorted and found the cookie mix in the pantry, one of those ‘just add water’ situations that should have been idiot-proof. Should have been.