“Why would you? It’s not like you ever called me.”
“Are you so lost for words that you’re pretending to be mad over something that happened six years ago?”
Wow, okay, Dr. Phil. No need to psycho-analyze every single word.
Also, yes.
I folded my arms across my chest in defiance. “No, but considering we slept together for two years and I didn’t like you then, I see no reason to like you now.”
His laugh burst out of him, sending annoying goosebumps prickling across my skin. “It’s nice to be welcomed to the neighborhood by such a warm and friendly welcoming committee. If I knew you were coming, I’d have brought cake.”
“I see you’re just as cocky as you always were.”
“You look as beautiful as ever, by the way.”
I pursed my lips. He was a big, fat freakin’ liar. I hadn’t washed my hair in four days, and I knew there were at least three colors of paint on my face, not to mention the paint—fresh and old—that coated my old sweater with a hole in the armpit.
“Daddy.” The little girl came running over with a doll dragging on the ground after her. “Daddy, I hungy.”
“Okay, okay. There are snacks in the truck. Do you want to say hi to my friend first?”
The little girl looked up at me with big, blue eyes that were so sweet they could probably compel an entire army to do her bidding. And that was before you considered her darling dimples and little bow lips.
Never mind the doll she was dragging. I was pretty sure she, herself, was a doll.
She stared at me for a long moment, then turned back to Mason. “No. I hungy.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to stop laughing. Considering I ran grandma’s art store and held a ceramic painting class for kids between the ages of five and ten every Saturday morning, I was totally used to their ability to get straight to the point without giving a damn what adults thought.
Mason looked at me with a wry smile. “Sorry. We’re working on her manners.”
“She’s hungry. I get it. I’d pick snacks over people, too.” I shrugged. “I have to get back inside anyway. I just wanted to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me.”
“Not today, Picasso.” He winked and turned away before I could say another word.
Goddamn it.
I’d hated it when he’d called me Picasso. One of the first times we met, I’d been sketching a squirrel, but I’d had trouble with its eyes. I’d already worked on it for three days, and when I’d showed him, he’d insisted they were level.
Long story short, I painted them, and they were not level.
From that moment on, he’d called me Picasso whenever he wanted to piss me off.
Given how I’d come out guns blazing, I probably deserved this one.
But hey—he never called when he said he would. As a woman, I reserved the right to be pissed off about that for the next twenty years and bring it up at every opportunity.
I watched him for a moment longer as he guided his daughter toward the truck, leaning down so she could hear him as he talked, then turned and went back inside.
Grandma was waiting for me. “Well? Is he the one you’re going to marry?”
“You really need another hobby.” I pushed the door shut and walked into the kitchen to grab a drink. “I’ll date and get married when I’m good and ready.”
“My time is running out, Immy.”
“The only thing running out here is my patience.”
“I went on the Thunder app, by the way.”
“The what now?”
“The Thunder app. The one from the commercials. Where you… Gosh, what was it?” She tapped a blue fingernail against her lips. “That’s it. Where you swipe left and right.”
Oh, please, no. “You mean Tinder. You went on the Tinder app.”
“Yep. There are some nice gentlemen on there.”
“Okay, listen to me when I tell you this: there is no such thing as a nice gentleman on a dating app.” I held the water bottle tightly. “Please do not go back on that godforsaken thing.”
She pouted. “But it was fun. There was a nice man who sent a picture of his—”
“I know what they send photos of, Grandma.”
“—Pomeranian.”
“Is that what your generation is calling a penis these days?” I asked witheringly. “Grandma, seriously. I have to get this painting done because Ashley Gunderson is coming to collect it in two days, and the stock crisis at the store yesterday in the middle of the art class kind of put me behind a little.”
Grandma jerked her chin up. “I was at yoga.”
“You were at the yoga studio with Priscilla and you were perving on the men’s class. That’s not the same as being in the middle of a yoga class.”
“It keeps me young, Immy. You’re only as young as the man you feel, you know.”
“Are you feeling any of those men?”
“Not technically speaking, but my loins definitely feel something.”
I blinked at her. “Have you taken your meds today? Do you need a nap?”
“Yes, I’ve taken my meds. And no, I don’t need a nap, thank you very much. I’m not a toddler.” She opened the cupboard nearest to her and let out a long, “Ooooh!”
I waited for her to turn around.
“Twizzlers!” she squealed.
Not a child, my ass.
“I think you’ve had enough sugar.” I plucked the packet from her hand. “Didn’t you eat a donut for breakfast?”
“Immy, when you’re eighty-years-old and you need to take twelve pills with your breakfast, you’ll take them with a donut, too.” She took the Twizzlers right back. “Now, I’m going for a nap. I just remembered that my bedroom window overlooks the front yard.”
Where Mason and a whole hoard of guys were moving his belongings into the house next door.
She was incorrigible.
Shaking my head, I left her to her so-called nap—where I’d probably find her actually napping on her window seat in thirty minutes—and went back to the dining table where my canvas was set up.
I didn’t often do commissioned pieces of art. Running the art store Grandma had opened fifty years ago and taking over the kids’ ceramic class pretty much swallowed up all my time, but I couldn’t turn this one down.
Mrs. Gunderson, the grandma of one of my ceramic-painting enthusiasts, had to have her dog put down three months ago after he was hit by a car. Her birthday was coming up, and so her daughter-in-law had commissioned this piece of her beloved poodle, Jammy.
I’d even put a tiny jar of jam hidden in one of the bushes in the background.
I was nearly done, meaning that my work for the next several hours would all be painstaking details that required the steadiest of steady hands.
None of those things would be helped by my pervert of a grandmother standing at the front window, remarking on everyone’s ‘packages.’
I slid into my seat and stared at the canvas in front of me. My gaze quickly darted to the window. It was weird to think that on the other side of that wall was the guy I used to…
Well, I wanted to say date, but that wasn’t true.
It was a booty call, pure and simple. That’s all we ever were to each other, mostly because we couldn’t hold a conversation without bitching at each other otherwise. As much as I joked about him not calling me, I could have hunted him down on social media or something.