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After the divorce, when Micah went back to school and then worked her clinical hours, her parents had a lot to say. She understood that they were looking at it from the point of view of a two parent home, where one was there for the kids and the other earned money. But she was a single parent and had to provide everything for Emery, even if Geoffrey was paying child support and alimony. They’d guilted her for a while, always in some subtle way or the other. They made her feel like a terrible mother for not being there with Emery all the time.
But even when she was studying and earning her hours, Micah made sure that she was there when Emery woke up every morning and before she went to bed at night. In the last few years, her schedule had gotten better. But there were always going to be nights like this one. This was partly why Micah didn’t date, because how could she justify staying out late every night when her daughter was home alone. Even if Mrs. Cannon—their neighbor and Emery’s favorite babysitter—was okay keeping her until late at night, she didn’t like bothering the widow. She was already so good to the George women, taking advantage of her further was unfair.
Now even Fletcher was supervising her teenager while Micah worked to help other kids and an older woman learn how to read. It was a lot.
“You’re a fantastic mother, nobody can take that away from you,” she whispered to herself and smoothed her hands down the front of her pink dress. Pushing her shoulders back, she repeated the words and then returned to the kitchen.
“Welcome home!” Emery greeted her with a broad grin and all of Micah’s worries faded away instantly. Her daughter was the light of her life, the best thing she’d ever done and her entire soul.
Before she could respond, Emery was hugging her. Her daughter never initiated hugs and certainly not when there was company. But Micah wouldn’t question it, instead, she hugged her daughter back and kissed the side of her head as she released her.
“Sorry, I commandeered your kitchen and put your kid to work,” Fletcher said, his hair still up in a ponytail and foggy glasses edging to the tip of his nose. He used the back of his hand to push the glasses up and smiled, making her knees wobble.
Fucking glasses.
“You’re forgiven, because that smells good.” She moved around the counter, needing something to do so she wouldn’t stare at his exposed arms. The tattoos were calling to her, she wanted to explore and understand them. But that meant getting close and Micah knew that if she got anywhere near him, she’d do exactly what her best friends suggested—fuck Fletcher.
Maybe I’ll lick him first. Sniff him too.
“Fletch made pasta sauce from scratch and it tastes amazing,” Emery said, excitement still lingering in her voice. Is he letting everyone call him Fletch now?
“It’s almost ready, if you’re hungry,” he added.
Micah nodded and worked to calm her fucking heart down. “Yup, sure.”
Emery grinned and bounced, rushing around to set the table. Micah forced her feet to move and she pulled out two stemless wine glasses from a cabinet—she was too jittery and accident prone for stemmed ones that evening—and a bottle of red wine she knew would go well with the pasta and handed it to Emery. She was trying not to stare at the man in her kitchen, but also trying not to have palpitations about the man being in her kitchen.
“Hope it’s okay that I’m using these dishes,” Fletcher said, his voice breaking through the noise in her head. “Emery said that you’d be fine with it.”
Micah glanced at the bowl in front of Fletcher and nodded. That was her usual pasta bowl, the difference was she filled it to the top and ate right out of it when she was alone. He never needed to know that.
“I told you she’d be fine with it.” Emery bounced back into the kitchen—this bouncing thing needed to stop or be explained, or both—and took the big bowl of pasta once it was filled. When she was gone, Fletcher pulled a salad bowl out of the fridge with freshly chopped vegetables and Micah’s eyes widened.
“You found all that in my kitchen?”
“Your neighbor gave me the lettuce, apparently she’s been trying to get Emery to eat more greens?”
She laughed at the mention of Mrs. Cannon and nodded. “Ever since we moved here, she’s been trying to sneak the greenest veggies into Emery’s food. She fell for it initially, but now my kid is too smart to be tricked into it.”
“I was like that as a teenager. Greens were too gross for my refined palate of chicken nuggets and French fries.”
Chuckling, Micah followed Fletcher to the table and frowned when she saw that it was only set for two. Emery was already loading up her plate with pasta, smiling sheepishly when Micah cleared her throat.
“Nico’s free tonight, so we’re going to storm the castle together,” her daughter explained, looking at her with puppy dog eyes. “Besides, I don’t want to be a third wheel.”
“Third…what?” Fletcher looked between them and Micah rolled her eyes at his genuine confusion.
She shouldn’t have been surprised that Emery was meddling, because after that first meeting at Big Waves, she’d been not so subtly asking questions about their history. She didn’t think it was important for Emery to know anything, because there was nothing to know. Except, her daughter was smarter than she gave her credit for. Micah wondered how she tricked Fletcher into this, because her plan had been flawless. Shaking her head as Emery batted her gorgeous long lashes, Micah sighed. It didn’t matter anyway, she was going to have to eventually be alone with Fletcher, so in the comfort of her own home while she was wearing fluffy slippers seemed like as good a time as any.
“Have fun!” Emery called out, vanishing out of sight in less than ten seconds.
Fletcher watched her go, then turned to Micah with a puzzled expression. “This was a setup.”
“Took you this long to figure it out,” she replied with a chuckle and settled at the table. At least Emery hadn’t lit candles or lowered the light in the room, because that would have been too much.
“I can go if this is…”
Shaking her head, she stretched one leg to push the other chair out. “It’s not whatever you’re going to say. And you did cook dinner, might as well eat it.”
