“I did,” I say, and when she zippily maneuvers the car onto the narrowing lanes of the Golden Gate Bridge, I turn to her, stripping the sarcasm from my tone. “Seriously, I appreciate it, Isla. I do.” And then I enter the school’s name into her GPS. “Whenever I’m in town, I try to pick her up myself. It’s a lot for a kid, you know? With my schedule and being a single parent and all. Her mom’s out of the picture entirely, so Mia bounces around a lot between my parents and me. I want to show up for her. I usually don’t misjudge time.”
“It’s okay. It happens. We’ve got this,” she says with an easy confidence, navigating traffic like a cab driver in New York City, making smart and savvy turns, finding the side streets before Waze tells her to.
It’s ridiculously sexy—her moxie behind the wheel, but also her calm demeanor. I think back to the words I used the other night to describe her. “Hey, Isla,” I say.
“Yes?” she asks as she weaves around an idling truck on Van Ness.
“The other night I was going to call you persistent.”
“What stopped you?”
“It didn’t feel like the right word.”
“Okay,” she says, seeming a little wary.
“Unstoppable is more like it,” I say.
And her smile right now is precisely that.
Five minutes later, she taps the turn signal with a triumphant flick of her fingers, then pulls up in front of Mia’s school with time to spare.
I whistle my approval. “Formula One has nothing on you.”
Her blue eyes twinkle. “In a past life I was a race car driver.”
“From the candy cane punch to the side-street swagger, you’re a regular Ms. Fix-It,” I say.
She bobs a shoulder. “Thank you.”
Maybe I’ve been a little hard on her with the whole matchmaking thing. She’s only trying to help me, even though I don’t believe in romance. “No, thank you,” I say, then I text Mia, making sure she knows to look for a red car with Christmas lights on it and a big, bushy tree on the roof.
When my kiddo hops into the vehicle a few minutes later, Mia points to the roof. “We’re getting a tree?” Her voice shoots to Mars, packed with so much hope it nearly takes me out.
“No, cupcake. Isla was just helping me out with picking you up after I helped her carry a Christmas tree. Plus, you already have Matilda,” I point out. We shopped for the secondhand artificial tree at Goodwill the year after Regina took off. I didn’t want a tree ever again; Mia did, so Matilda—as Mia named her—got a new home at our place. Matilda is a three-foot high artificial tree that fits perfectly in the corner of her room where she sets it up every year. Perfectly out of my line of sight too. “And we have stockings,” I point out. Or really, one stocking—hers. I don’t want anything for Christmas.Ever.
“But a tree forboth of uswould be so great,” Mia says as she slings on her seat belt. “Now that I know you can carry one, after all.”
Isla’s jaw drops and she jerks her gaze toward me, mouthing, “You pretend you can’t carry a tree?”
“No!” I take a beat, then mutter. “I just maybe, possibly mentioned that tall trees are really heavy.”
Isla tsks me. “Rowan Bishop.” My name is said with all the disappointment in the world.
But a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. “Besides, don’t you like Matilda?” I ask Mia. I sure hope she does. Just the other week, I suffered through the five minutes it took to help hang the baker’s dozen’s worth of ornaments Matilda holds.
“Of course I like Matilda, Dad,” Mia says, and it sounds like there’s a touch of placating. “But a big, fluffy, tall one for the living room would be so fun.” She pauses, and in the quiet, I hunt for some sort of suitable explanation for why Istilldon’t want one.Your mom broke my heart on Christmasdoesn’t really cut it. But I don’t need to say a word since Mia’s scanning from Isla to me, seeming to assess the situation, then she declares, “But since you didn’t get a tree, I take it this means we’re going to open today’s Advent calendar now. Because, if you think about it, Islashouldbe a part of it. She helped me plan it. She’s my lawyer, you know.”
“Mia, you’re nine. You don’t need a lawyer.”
“I did though. She defended my read-every-night rights,” Mia says with a proud lift of her chin as Isla pulls away from the school.
This kid keeps me on my toes. But my job requires quick reflexes, so I use them. “It’s a school day. Don’t you have homework?”
Mia smiles like an angel. “I did all my homework at school already. It’s like this was meant to be! And it really feelssuper fairthat Isla does our Advent calendar with us,” Mia says, trying again to make her case. It’s admirable, but I’ve got a surefire way to end this convo. I don’t know that all this time spent together is a good idea. I don’t want Mia to get too comfortable with the idea of Isla being around. That’s playing with fire.
“Love that idea. But I’m sure Isla has things to do athome,” I say, then glance Isla’s way. “Like devise new ways to torture me.”
“Yes, that’s it. I planned to go home to my little underground cave and plot all sorts of dark ways to make your life difficult,” she says, turning onto the road that’ll take us back to my house.
