So that was exactly what I was going to do.
“I can make that work.”
She arched her brow. “Are you sure? Because it’s just as easy for us to have it at our place, and I don’t want you to commit to it if you don’t think you can—”
“I can,” I snapped, much more harshly than she deserved. “Sorry, what I meant to say is that I would love to have her party here, and since I know about it so far in advance, there’s no reason I can’t make that happen.”
Allie studied me for a second, then smiled. It wasn’t the old smile—the one I had fallen in love with years ago—but it was one I was more familiar with these days. Something steadier.
Teamwork.
“She wants to do a baking theme,” Allie relayed. “I’m talking about a dozen first graders, covered in frosting, rainbow sprinkles everywhere. Think you can handle it?”
I scoffed. “Please”
“Is that a yes?”
“Allie, I manage a locker room full of grown men who eat sunflower seeds out of each other’s cleats and whip each other with towels. I think I can handle a few sugar-hyped first graders.”
“Famous last words.” She grinned, tossing her keys from one hand to the other. “Just wait until one of them cries because their cupcake collapsed. Or someone licks the communal spatula.”
“Sounds like the 2016 postseason bullpen.”
She laughed, the sound short and warm, and I caught the edge of it in my chest.
“Alright, coach,” she said. “You’re on the hook now. We can discuss the details later.”
I leaned my hip against the porch rail and looked at her. “Thanks for this, Allie.”
She tilted her head. “The party?”
“Yeah. And just . . . for letting her choose this.”
Letting me do this.
Allie shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal, even though we both knew it was. “It’s what she wants. She’s old enough to know now.”
That landed too. Shewasold enough now. To notice who showed up, to remember who didn’t.
“I won’t let her down,” I vowed, quieter this time.
“I know,” she said, softer still. “I wouldn’t have said anything if I didn’t think you were ready. She notices the effort. We both do.”
There was a beat of quiet, the kind that might have lingered too long if Carolina’s voice hadn’t floated out from beyond the doorway just then.
“Daddy, I’m hungry! And we need to name my starter.”
I looked at Allie. “Do we really need to name the dough?”
She held her hands out defensively in front of her. “Hey, I was voted out of the naming committee days ago. She’s all yours now, so start thinking . . . yeasty.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
She winked and started back for the car. “Night, coach.”
I stood there for another minute or two even after her car rolled away, just listening. The hum of the forest, the distant knock of cabinet doors opening and closing, the giddy voice of a six-year-old ready to conquer the culinary world. And somewhere, in the middle of it, a jar of living dough demanding a name.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.
