Page 105 of The Moment We Know

All eyes turned to Paige, who tried to think of something sincere, yet funny, and in the end simply settled on, “I’m thankful for the best Thanksdinner, ever.”

When dinner was over, Jacob disappeared into the living room, leaving the adults to clean up the kitchen. They’d hardly made a dent in the amount of prepared food, and Valerie was quick to suggest Paige help herself to whatever leftovers she wanted.

“Thank you, I will,” she said. “And if it’s okay, I’d like to take some for my neighbor, Dolly, as well.”

“Of course.”

David made a pained noise.

Valerie looked at him. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

Paige caught Valerie’s eye. “He doesn’t like her.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“It’s not that I don’t like her,” David hedged. “It’s that she doesn’t like me.”

“What do you call her?” Paige asked David with an innocent tilt of her head. “The ‘barracuda’?”

Valerie turned to look at David, appalled.

“Obviously not to her face,” he quickly defended himself before giving Paige a Thanks for throwing me under the bus, then running me over look.

“It’s okay. She kind of is,” Paige told Valerie in a low voice, not missing David raising his hands in aggravation at Paige tossing a little water on the fire she’d started. “She’s seventy, though, and—”

“You’re being mean to a seventy-year-old woman?” Valerie glared at David, now even more appalled.

“No, I’m not. I’m actually the opposite of mean to her,” David said. “She’s the one who’s mean.”

“She’s not mean,” Paige disagreed, only to add, “but she can be a little … blunt, though.”

“A little blunt? I’d barely just met the woman and she was telling me I needed to get a haircut.”

“You do,” Valerie agreed.

Paige smiled, thinking back to that night. “She also corrected his grammar and threatened to call the police on him.”

“See?” David asked. “She’s not a nice person.”

“But she did say you wore your pants well—”

“And then turned around and accused me of being a bad kisser.” David shook his head. “Not. A nice. Person.”

Valerie looked from David to Paige, then back to David. “Why was she accusing you of being a bad kisser?”

“Um …” David blinked at her, momentarily at a loss for an answer, and supremely annoyed that he’d blurted out that tidbit.

Paige started to chuckle, then quickly smothered it. “It’s not what you think.”

“I hope not,” Valerie said, more amused than concerned, but still obviously wanting an explanation.

While David semi-glowered, arms folded across his chest, Paige began telling Valerie about the divorce anniversary ‘date’ David and Paige had gone on, sticking pretty much to the facts when it came to the dinner and bowling portion of the night. However, when it came to the hot make-out session outside her door, she downgraded it to a simple goodnight kiss. She then skimmed over barricading herself in her apartment and David’s attempts to get her to come out and talk, which resulted in the ridiculous phone conversation, followed by Mrs. Harte’s arrival on the scene. Paige then went back to full disclosure as she described the contentious meeting between Mrs. Harte and David, Paige and Mrs Harte’s phone conversation followed by Mrs. Harte’s departure, and finally ending with David leaving, after his promise to collect on the ‘victory’ dinner from his bowling triumph.

When Paige was done, Valerie wiped at her eyes, then looked at Paige and David with a calculating expression. Positive that Valerie was going to question the veracity of the simple goodnight kiss, Paige was surprised when Valerie mused, “So, it seems like things between you two actually started back in … August? That’s really interesting.”

Paige pursed her mouth, realizing Valerie obviously hadn’t known that. “Oh, um …”

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