“Yeah, it definitely looked like you were having a good time.” I take a sip of my own and put it down out of Ben’s colouring range.
“Did you stay out late?”
“Not too late. Megan had us home just after midnight. Erin stayed in my spare room, so we left her to sleep in.”
Claire’s younger sister, Erin, is finishing nursing school. She comes home to help Claire as much as she can and encourages her to do things for herself. Single mom life is tough.
“But let’s talk about the PG version of your night.” She raises her eyebrows at me, as she takes a bite of her bagel.
“There’s not a lot to tell, PG or otherwise.” I shrug, eating my sandwich, wishing it was the donut that I really want.
“I beg to differ. I notice you are here without Danny this morning.”
“Mmmhmm. He went back to his parent’s place last night, I presume.”
“He didn’t want to have a sleep over Auntie Hannah?” Ben asks as he continues to colour.
“No, not last night. I was very tired.” I run my hand over his back, and he nods in acknowledgement.
“Will he be having any sleepovers anytime soon?” Claire smirks, sitting back holding her cup with both hands.
“No, we didn’t make any plans.”
“I see. Do you have plans to sleepover with anyone else I know?” She bites her bottom lip, trying and failing to suppress her grin.
I narrow my eyes at her. “No, I do not.”
She laughs.
“It’s only a matter of time.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask quirking my eyebrow.
“Hannah, you could cut the smexual tension between the two of you with a knife. Everyone could feel it. You couldn’t keep your eyes off each other.”
Smexual – I’ll add that to my Ben friendly word bank.
“And he was insanely jealous of Danny. Not gonna lie it was kind of hot.”
“I think you misunderstood what kind of tension it was. Besides, I thought you weren’t on team Logan.”
“I’m on team Hannah first, but I will confess he’s hard not to like.”
“Did you know that Logan is Uncle Riot’s very bestest friend in the entire world?” Ben asks, looking back and forth between his mom and me.
“Is that right? Who told you that?” I ask my tiny gossipy friend.
“Uncle Riot. He was talking to him on the phone and when he got off, I asked him who he was talking to, and he said it was Logan his bestest friend in the entire world. He moved into the yellow house with all the little men outside. Why is there soooo many little men, Mommy?” He looks up at Claire with round eyes.
“Those little men are called garden gnomes and when Logan was a little boy and lived in the yellow house, his mommy collected them.”
“Why?”
“It’s a mystery.”
“And they had babies and now there is so many?”
“Well, no,” Claire rubs her forehead, “they are just a large group of gnome friends.”
