I leave her by her car with a small, chaste kiss. Tomorrow night, though … if I’m going to kiss her, it’s not going to be on her cheek.
Autumn
“I. Have. A. Playdate. With. Chase.” Henry smacks his hands with each word from the back seat of the car. “Mommy. Has. A. Date. With. Mr. Trent.” My eyes roll hard as we sit at the red light on Main and Sixth Street. A row of cute houses is to my right and the coffee shop I sat at with Trent is to my left.
Even as I let out the frustrated breath, I stare longingly at the white rattan table we sat at. The table where his lips first touched me like I’ve been dreaming about. And everything inside me blazes. He may be my son’s teacher … but there’s no doubt that Trent Morgan could teach me a thing or two.
Turning down the music as the red light changes to green, I question Henry to get his mind anywhere other than the date I have with his preschool teacher.
My phone pings and I wait until I’m at the next red light before I peek at it.
Sharon wants to know if I like him and how the date went.
Ugh. Those nerves from before rattle inside of me and I struggle to come up with another response. I know she knows I do like him and that the date was “just fine” because that’s what I wrote in the group chat.
Not only was it “just fine,” it was a low-key icebreaker that somehow turned scorching hot out of nowhere. I’ve been imagining all sorts of things for over a year but what I wanted to do to that man on top of that little table is downright deviant.
I’m surely not going to tell Sharon that. My plan is to drag my feet as long as I can until I know if there’s really something there between Trent and me.
One kiss really. It’s all in the kiss, isn’t it? That’s what they say, so … just one kiss. A real one. Not a peck on the cheek to say goodbye after a coffee date, but the type of kiss that slows down your whole world as you kick up one leg and turn to jello.
Nodding my head in agreement with … well with myself, I realize I’ve been ignoring Henry.
“Right, Mommy?” Henry says.
“Yes, that’s right,” I answer and immediately regret agreeing without knowing what I’m agreeing to.
“You like Mr. Morgan! Mommy likes Mr. Morgan!”
Ping. My phone goes off again as I roll up to the address Trent texted me.
I’m just curious! Sharon wrote and I know I need to write something back so I settle on a sort-of truth: He asked me out tonight so we’ll see!
And with that response, my phone is turned on silent.
The inner voice in my head is anything but, though. With a heavy breath out, I lie to myself. I’m not a bad friend. She had a year. A full year. There has to be fine print in the dibs clause and if she was upset, she would have said so.
All the nerves that nag at me vanish the moment my gaze lifts to the dark blue front door of the raised ranch house. Standing there in the yard and staring straight back at me is the man I can’t get off my mind.
In a crisp white button-down with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms and dark blue jeans, he looks impeccably handsome. That look in his eyes when our gazes meet, and the way his lips kick up into a crooked grin … morphs his clean-cut look into that of a tempting devil.
It’s only when his mother calls his name that I’m snapped out of it and unbuckle my belt. As I gather Henry and his bag out of the car, I can barely hear their conversation.
“Is this your partner in crime, Chase? The one you’ve been telling me about?” Mrs. Emma Morgan’s glasses slip down the bridge of her nose as she speaks, but even still the woman is a force. I used to think age didn’t know her name; she could be Trent’s sister if the whole town didn’t know any better. She practically raised half of us.
The past few years may have added some lines around her eyes and as she smiles, some new wrinkles rest there too, but his mother is still the woman I remember.
Which makes it a little … odd to show up and ask her to watch my son while I date hers.
“Mrs. Morgan, how are you?” I give her the largest smile I can and do my best to pretend that there isn’t anything at all weird about this.
“Wonderful,” she says and her gaze slips down to my dress. “Don’t you look as pretty as a peach in June.”
The smile on my face is genuine when I tell her thank you and then add, “And thank you for watching Henry.”
“Trust me,” she says and stands upright, watching Henry run off to the flower bed where Chase is currently stacking rocks and knocking them down with some Transformer or other plastic figure of some sort I’m sure cost twenty bucks or more. “It will be easier on me for Chase to have a friend to keep him occupied.”
“I really appreciate it.”
“You don’t have to keep thanking her,” Trent says and slips a hand on my lower back as he adds, “She’d kill me if I let someone else watch him on her weekend with Chase.”
His mother gestures with a hand before I can say anything and she writes us off with a wave as she says, “Enjoy your date.”
There’s this thing about a small town and how people talk. Word spreads and even the most innocent of things can turn scandalous.
That’s probably why the only words I can think of right now are that it’s not a date. But I know very well it is, so instead I stand there, watching the woman who used to watch me take a seat in a lawn chair and call out for us to have fun.
This is the specific time my friend group calls the moment. The one where you know you’re really on a date and it’s happening. So either you turn back, or you run full steam ahead.
“Your car or mine? I would immediately go to mine, but since it’s not a date-date …”
“What?”
“You just muttered it’s not a date-date,” Trent says jokingly and with him next to me, standing there, I have to crane my head to look up at him. Even in these wedge sandals.
Standing there in the late summer warmth that’s quickly fading into an early fall evening chill, I’m lost in his amber eyes for just a moment.
“If I had it my way, it’d be a date-date, you know?” he says, the confession sounding like it’s something sinful.
The boys yelling out on behalf of the toy men in their hands breaks me from the spell Trent is so darn good at putting me under.
“Henry is already chanting that we’re dating.” I’m busy tucking my hair behind my ear when Trent replies, “That’s my little man.”
I can’t deny it does something to me, listening to him talk about son like that. Little butterflies make my stomach flip and I can see a happily ever after with him. Already. I haven’t even had my kiss yet.
As he asks me, yet again, whose car we’re taking since I still have my keys in my hand, I come to a very real observation.
Dating a man you really want to hold on to for more than one night is completely terrifying.
Trent
With dim, candlelit lighting, modern furniture draped in plush velvet, and the other guests dressed to the nines, Blue Bay is the fanciest restaurant this town has to offer. And the only one I can imagine taking Autumn to tonight. Even if she did drive and refer to this evening as not a date-date, this is an official first date. And judging by her shyness and the quiet thank you as I push her chair in, Autumn is very much aware of that.