Page 4 of We Can Forever

My heart rate picks up. So, Michael’s kid is eleven?

I try to glean some information from that little nugget, but it doesn’t tell me anything. I love kids but have never dated anyone with them, so I don’t really have a daily look into what parenting is like.

“I know who he is.” Maya puts her knitting in her lap. “He grew up on Pine Island and just moved back. I’ve never talked to him, though. We haven’t had the autumn parent-teacher conferences yet. Katie is a great kid, though. And…” She smiles shyly. “The other teachers say that Michael is easy on the eyes.”

“Hannah has a blind date with him,” Flick says.

Alexis gasps, and suddenly, all the attention in the room is on me. I shrug, doing my best to keep my hands moving. I’ve dropped yet another stitch, though—my fifth one.

Just how attractive is Michael? What if he’s out of my league? Not that I’m ugly—I mean, I don’t think—but I also don’t think I’m anything to write home about.

“Sorry,” Flick whispers to me, as the other two start a conversation about their knitting. “I shouldn’t have announced that.”

“No, it’s okay.” I shake my head. “I’m just… I haven’t been on a date in a long time.”

“I know.” She gives me a sympathetic look. I’ve told her all about Paul and how I’ve been too busy to date since him.

“What if it’s just a mess?” I sigh. “What if?—”

“If it’s a mess, then you send me an SOS text, and I’ll call you with some sort of yarn-based emergency that you need to attend to immediately. Like a crate of vicuña just became available and we have to go to the wholesale store and wrestle the other vendors for it. And if all goes well…that’s a good thing.”

“Is he really that hot?” I whisper. “How hot is he? On a scale of one to ten?”

Flick takes my knitting out of my hands. “I’m not going to answer that because I don’t want you to work yourself up even more. Just know that you deserve someone hot and kind and good to you, and dating is the way to get there.”

I take my knitting back from her. “Thank you.”

She stares me down. “Remember how nervous you were about tonight’s meeting?”

“Of course.” I was barely able to sleep for weeks leading up to it.

“And look how well it’s going.”

I glance at Alexis and Maya, who are admiring each other’s work. A smile pulls at my lips. Flick is right. I was super anxious about tonight, and despite that, everything turned out great.

So maybe tomorrow’s date will be the same.

Either way, at least I’m going for it. I’m taking the plunge and getting outside my comfort zone. And if I do something embarrassing on the date and fall flat on my face, I can always come back to the shop and bury myself in a mountain of yarn skeins.

Chapter Two

MICHAEL

“Dad? Dad!”

“Huh? What?” I drop the layout plans I’ve been poring over and spin around. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Katie frowns at me from her seat at the kitchen table. “We need help with these fractions.”

Her cousin Rose sighs in frustration. “Our teacher didn’t show us how to do it.”

I highly doubt that’s the case—more like the girls weren’t paying attention. I get it, though. School wasn’t exactly a walk in the park for me either, and I would rather have been playing out in the woods any day than sitting in a classroom.

“Let’s take a look.” Leaving the plans for the firehouse kitchen on the counter, I pull up a chair between Katie and Rose. “Do you remember the first step?”

“Uh-huh.” Katie picks up her pencil and then does some math that makes zero sense.

“What’s that?” I raise my eyebrow at my daughter.

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