I glanced toward Emily’s house without meaning to. The back door was closed, no sign of her in those big sunroom windows. The gate between our yards was shut again, that rusty bolt back in place.
Good. Last thing I needed was another interaction when I was still trying to forget the earlier one had felt. The way she’d smelled when she’d leaned in close. Something light and clean that I had no business noticing.
I wasn’t noticing. I wasn’t thinking about it.
Except apparently I was, because my brain kept circling back to it like a dog with a bone it couldn’t bury. The way she’d flexed her hands after we’d finished with the springs, fingers cramping from the work. How she’d recognized my company name and then immediately backed off when she’d seen I didn’t want to talk about it. The sound of her laugh when she’d walked back to her place.
Why the fuck was I thinking about all this?
“Daddy!” Alice’s voice yanked my attention back. “Watch this!”
She attempted her own seat drop, mostly just falling on her butt and bouncing sideways. “Did you see?”
“I saw. Very impressive.”
“Come jump!”
I kicked off my shoes and climbed on, the whole thing dipping significantly under my weight. Both girls immediately tried to bounce me; their combined efforts barely moved me an inch. They shrieked with laughter anyway, jumping harder, faces red with effort.
“You’re too heavy!” Audrey declared, bouncing frantically.
“Or you’re too light.” I did a small controlled jump that sent both of them tumbling safely onto their backs, giggles exploding out of them.
We stayed out there until the sun dipped low, playing a game the girls had invented. It was a complex story about being astronauts that required very specific types of jumping to travel between planets.
“Okay, space explorers.” I finally climbed off, my knees reminding me I wasn’t twenty anymore. “Time for dinner.”
“Five more minutes?” Alice pleaded, still running around the edge of the mat.
“You said that five minutes ago.”
“Five more real minutes?”
“Nice try. Come on.”
They climbed down reluctantly, both of them messy and sweaty and completely happy. The kind of happy that came from just being kids. No cameras, no poses, no performing for an audience they didn’t even understand.
This right here was what mattered.
As we headed inside, my eyes drifted toward Emily’s house again. Her sunroom light was on now, warm and golden in the growing dusk.
I forced myself to look away. She was just my neighbor. A neighbor who’d helped me with the trampoline because I’d helped her with her tire. We were even. That was it.
“So,” I said, holding the door open and ushering them inside. “Who wants mac and cheese?”
“ME!” Alice shouted, already running for the kitchen.
Audrey rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “We should have veggies with it.”
“When did you become the responsible one?”
She shrugged, so much older than seven sometimes. “Well, you gotta think about these things.”
I tugged her ponytail gently. “That’s my job, monster.”
“Then can we have ice cream for dessert?”
Giving her a narrow-eyed look, I said, “I see what you did there.”
