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“I’m not ringing the bell of my own house, Ves.”
“But you’ll argue with me outside it?”
Her smile is pure devilry. “I’ll argue with you anywhere.”
Yeah, he’ll bet she would. But he rings the bell to cut the squabble short, pleasantly surprised when her eyebrows shoot up as though she didn’t expect him to give in. He will never tell her to her face, but he enjoys surprising her. Showing her that she doesn’t have him all figured out. That beneath the buttoned-up, inflexibly practical persona is a man taking baby steps at being unpredictable.
The door swings open, bringing with it the mouthwatering aroma of home cooking. Anita wears a black vegan-leather skirt and a fuzzy gray sweater shot through with enough silver thread that she sparkles at every angle like a ball of tinsel. “Hi, kids! Welcome, Ves. Please come in.”
“Thanks for the invitation, Mrs. Rowe.” He politely steps across the threshold, offering her the bottle and the bouquet of red amaryllis blooms and white peonies he picked up at the florist’s on Main Street.
“Please, call me Anita,” she says with a laugh, shutting the door behind them. As Ves passes her, he’s stunned when she does a quick kiss-kiss to the sides of his cheeks. It doesn’t bother him, he just doesn’t expect it, so he gapes like a fish until the shock settles.
Should he return the gesture? No, he’s taken too long, the moment has passed. And he definitely can’t shake her hand now. It’s too late and too formal and—
Oh, Anita’s already pulling her daughter into the house. Elisha doesn’t seem to notice anything amiss, either. The boulder of pressure on his chest eases. Maybe his first impression isn’t as shitty as he thinks.
“Thank you, the flowers are beautiful, Ves. We’re thrilled to finally have you over! As you can imagine, this is the Chocolate Mouse’s busiest season, so we’ve barely had a moment to ourselves this December.” Anita’s brown eyes dance with her daughter’s mischievousness. “We would have come over as soon as we knew you were in town, but much to everyone’s surprise, our daughter beat us to it.”
“Including mine,” Ves says wryly. “Emphasis on beat.”
Elisha scoffs and gestures to her knee. “Hey, the only one injured that day was me.”
“Poor baby,” says Anita, giving Ves an apologetic smile that speaks of endless love for her reckless daughter. Her dangly silver earrings glimmer when she turns to call for her husband, “Jamie, honey, Ves is here!”
After Ves and Elisha toe off their shoes, Anita leads the way to the kitchen. He pauses to look at their family photos lining the walls. For a second, it bothers him that clearly nothing is in chronological order. In the next, he’s already too distracted to care.
Elisha bright-eyed and red-lipped in her high school graduation cap and gown, looking cozy in a group pic with a handsome dark-haired boy he doesn’t recognize, arm wrapped around Elisha’s shoulders like it belongs there. Must be an old boyfriend. Other faces, ones he knows, round out the group: Solana Pereira, Adam Lawson, Riley Studebaker, Adhira Ambani, Becca Rosen, Isaiah Osuji, and Kat Kwon.
Ves squints at the boy, aging him up in his mind and wondering if he’s still in town—and if so, with any luck he’s got a spouse and is absolutely haggard after three kids, all under five. And then promptly wants to roll his own eyes at the ridiculous, petty sensation of being jealous over a teenage ex.
But he’s stared at it too long, and now feels like it has to be addressed. “You two were cute,” he says, turning around to smirk.
“So cute that he couldn’t wait to get out of what he considered a ‘dead-end small town’ the second we graduated. Now keep it moving,” whispers Elisha. He’s about to protest when her hand lands on his ass and pushes him along with enough vigor that he actually does keep walking.
Toddler pictures of Elisha at the Chocolate Mouse, so engrossed in wrapping herself in copious amounts of tinsel that she looks like the most adorable sparkly mummy he’s ever seen. Why are people so embarrassed about baby pictures? He doesn’t get it. He’d love if he had any of his own.
“Ves.”
“What? I’m literally in motion.”
“Too.” She jabs her finger in the small of his back. “Slowly!”
“Who rushes on a scenic route?” Granted, he does. Or at least, he used to. But now he’s finding that when the view is her, there’s no end to the detours he’d take to learn everything about her.
“He who wants to live to eat dinner,” Elisha deadpans.
But Ves has an unfettered opportunity to drink in all these little time capsules of her life, and he’s not just going to walk on by without appreciating them. Other than the yearly school picture, his own childhood was never displayed proudly throughout his house when he was growing up.
Now it’s the Rowes on holiday somewhere tropical, a teenage Elisha in a yellow string bikini that matches the color of the house behind her. She holds a green coconut with both hands, teeth clamped around the straw sticking out of it. Her parents hang in the background, dotted along the shoreline.
It’s only been seconds, but he can feel her impatience mounting. Why? She’s cute as... His mind flails. Well, cute as a button, he supposes, a phrase he’s never used in his life and can’t imagine where he heard.
“I absolutely need your middle name for situations like this,” she groans from behind him.
“Andrew,” he says absently, still unaccountably hungry for these peeks into her life.
He skips several frames, only to land on a gap-toothed Elisha holding a red lollipop in one hand and the paw of a soft cuddly toy in the other. His eyes widen, recognizing it as the bear from the workshop.
