Page 81 of Recipe for Rivals

“Ben is dying to go to Disney World for the Star Wars rides. We haven’t taken him yet.”

“Him and me both,” Dusty muttered, sending me a boyish smile.

“You’ve always been a Star Wars nerd, haven’t you?”

“Maybe. I’m not ashamed.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“My parents promised to take me to Disney World when I was fourteen,” he said lightly. “Not for the Star Wars, but because they were really good at promising things they had no way to follow through on.”

“I thought you lived with your grandpa by then?”

“Oh, yeah. My parents had disappeared for years, but they showed up the summer before I went to high school and pretended to be interested. I haven’t seen them since. They were heading to a compound in North Carolina last I heard, but since they took my piggy bank with them, I decided it was okay for me to stop caring.”

My hand stilled before reaching for the final piece, then I dropped it in my lap, leaving the last piece on the table. “Have you considered looking them up?”

Dusty stared at the final piece. “I thought about it when I moved my grandpa into Pleasant Gardens, but decided not to. It took years to make up my mind about them. First I was bitter and hurt. Now, it still hurts—I won’t try to pretend it doesn’t—but the bitterness is gone. Instead, I just don’t care. They chose drugs over me, so I choose to live a happy life without wondering why I wasn’t good enough for them.”

“Sounds healthy,” I said, and altogether impossible—but I didn’t add that part out loud.

“It wasn’t always.” He said no more than that. “Should we do the final piece together?”

“Sure.”

Dusty picked it up, and I awkwardly took the other side. We shoved it into place in the wide expanse of blue and pushed it down together. “That was satisfying,” he said.

I grinned, running my hands over the finished picture to smooth it out. “It’s the best part of the puzzle.”

Dusty stood. “I better get this girl home.”

“Thanks for coming over.”

He gave me a flat look. “I wasn’t doing you a favor, Nova. I really like your kids.”

“I know,” I said, surprised to realize I meant it. Dusty had a way of providing service to me without making me feel like a chore. It was one of the things I liked most about him. Whether he meant to or not, he made me feel like he wanted to be here. “I won’t even offend you by trying to tell you how I plan to pay you back.”

He rolled his eyes. “At some point, you’ll have to accept that getting to hang out with you guys is paying me back. If I hadn’t come over tonight, it would have just been me, Leia, and an early night with Kylo Ren.”

What did it say about us that I’d followed that sentence exactly? I walked him to the door but didn’t open it yet. “You’re a good guy, Dusty.”

His smile was self-effacing.

Without thinking too much about what I was doing, I leaned toward him, my arms going around his neck in an awkward hug where I tried my best not to squish—or wake—the sleeping cat. His free arm went around my waist, applying pressure, and I pressed my forehead to his shoulder briefly, inhaling the scent of laundry detergent and a faint hint of manly soap. His fingers splayed on my back, increasing my pulse into dangerous territory.

It would be a downright lie to tell myself I wasn’t falling for this guy, pointless to try and convince my pulse to calm down. It knew when I was being held by someone worth kissing, and all I wanted right now was to move the cat out of the way and do just that. But my kids were on the other side of the wall and his baby was literally between us, and I wondered if those were two reasons not to push it.

Besides, what if I was just another Gracie Mae, not getting the hints he was dropping in front of me? Maybe I’d been out of the game so long I didn’t know the difference between teasing and flirting anymore.

No, that was silly. There was no way he would be this overt with someone he didn’t have an interest in. That didn’t make the situation easier. He might think he wanted to date a single mom, but it was a lot of commitment. For my kids’ sakes, I couldn’t just jump into anything yet.

Reluctantly, I pulled away. His hand dragged around my waist as I stepped back.

We stood there, looking at each other. He didn’t move to leave, and I didn’t turn away.

My phone rang. I wanted to ignore it, but it had ruined the silence and broken the spell between us. I pulled it from mypocket and saw my mom. I showed him the screen. “I’d better take this.”

He nodded, giving me one last searching gaze before opening the door. “See you Saturday. And bring your A-game.”