(pic)
You didn’t have to but they’re damn good
Thanks
MARA O’CONNELL
Quite a few missing there. How many did Dad have?
Do you always follow up on gifts you gave or do you mind your business?
Sounds like I hit a sore spot
There’s no need to be ashamed
(pic of her with Aspen biting into a cookie and Hazel on her lap with chocolate around her mouth)
Okay, fine, Mara looked hot. Her red hair was up in a ponytail that looked thick and bouncy and probably fun to pull.
But it was more that she was beautiful and didn’t look overly posed. She’d had to use her arm around Hazel to take the picture, so she couldn’t have had more than a split second to take it. Her expression was so genuine: happy, but not “look at how happy I am!” It was just a mom and her kids. I couldn’t decide if her earnestness was attractive or off-putting.
And was that a flash of ink under her arm?
“Are you mad? Who are you talking to?” Jace asked.
“What?”
“Your face is red,” he said, cocking his head to the side like he was concerned.
“No, it’s not,” I argued.
“It looks like you got a sunburn,” Harper added around a mouthful of cookie. “You have to wear sunscreen, Daddy.”
I scowled to her giggle, tossing a napkin at her. “Wipe your face, kid.”
I needed to cook up some kind of response to Mara’s picture. I wanted it to be clever, but not my knee-jerk thought of “hot.”
Since when was I attracted to moms who hadn’t birthed my children? I mean, I wasn’t attracted to Sydney anymore because her miserly personality outweighed any physical attraction. But if you’d asked me before I got divorced who I’d be going after, it wouldn’t be another parent. It would be some young hot thing. Definitely not a mom.
So what was hot about Mara? Her openness? Her looks? Some other X factor I’d never figure out?
I could be honest with myself enough that Mara was the first woman who interested me beyond just fucking since the divorce. But how was she any different than Sydney? They were both charming. Something of a loner, though I did see her laughing and whispering with one of the teachers at school drop-off.
Was it that Sydney pursued me so heavily, and Mara could probably take me or leave me? She said she wasn’t into hockeydads. And putting the pieces together, I guess her ex had played at some point too? So she probably wasn’t into hockey guys at all.
Goddammit, was all that shit about going after the one that’s hard to get true?
I needed to get her out of my head, and get out of my head entirely.
Fun
Probably the shittiest response I could have come up with. I leaned against the kitchen counter, staring longer. I needed to show some semblance of friendliness. Some people use emojis, right?
There I was, back on my bullshit of worrying about what Mara would think of what I said. I didn’t need her to want me, but I didn’t want to embarrass myself either. Was this how you used an emoji?
:)
Could not have been a more stupid response. But before I could delete or unsend it, she put a heart on it.
