I told Doc I’d only work with him if he started stocking better suckers for when we have to give the kids shots.
“I have a strawberry,” I tell her as I pick one up off my plate.
She makes a face at me. “Dat not a sucka.”
“Hey, Ava, how about you let Sloane eat something?” Beck says. “You know how you get hungry? She gets hungry too. But she hasn’t had two bananas and an orange and applesauce and four eggs and six pieces of bacon and two cinnamon rolls yet. She hasn’t even hadone. Of anything.”
“Was that your breakfast or hers?” I ask Beck.
“Hers,” Sarah supplies.
“We had to take out a loan to feed him when he was a teenager,” Michelle Ryder says.
Beck stares at her, clearly horrified. “I paid you back.”
I don’t actually know if they’re joking, so I do my best to suppress a smile until the other two moms crack up.
“Sucka?” Ava asks me again.
I try again with the next piece of fruit on my plate. “I have a blackberry.”
Her frown gets frownier.
“Did I hear you like mushrooms?” I ask her.
One minute, she’s mad that I’m offering her blackberries, and the next, she’s vibrating with what I’m assuming is unrestrained joy. “Mush-ooms!”
Beck winces. “Ava?—”
“Don’t worry, I saved you from your own incompetence,” a new voice says.
But still a familiar voice.
Weirdly familiar.
I look around, and it takes me twice to spot the woman lurking in a chair in the corner.
Slender.
Brown eyes.
Serious face.
Brown hair in a bun.
Good thing I haven’t eaten anything yet, or I’d be choking.
“You brought mushrooms?” Beck whispers reverently.
“Don’t mistake me not being here often for me being ignorant.”
“You’re Vanessa?” I’m speaking in the same reverent tone.
“All my life,” she replies. “Nice to meet you in person when I’m not trying to run over our mutual ex.”
“Vanessa,” Alice Remington says. There’s no mistaking her because she’s also slender and has her hair tied up in a bun.
“She’s joking,” Beck says.
