Page 18 of Recipe for Rivals

I shrugged. “Just a guess. I’ll get your orders in now.” I looked at the policemen. “How’s your food?”

“Great,” Chad said, winking at me.

Eww, weird.

“Careful making friends with the enemy,” Randy called as I walked toward the kitchen, “or you might join Dusty’s list of rivals.”

I looked at him over my shoulder while I walked toward the kitchen. Dusty and I had started out on the wrong foot, and I didn’t think it was going to right itself anytime soon. “Pretty sure I’m already on it.”

Then I pushed through the door to give Dal the order, my stomach doing a weird leap. That wasn’t flirting, right? Definitely not. I wasn’t even ready to look at another man, not really. I could objectively notice how attractive Dusty was or the way my heart started beating a little faster when he walked in the diner, but it was too soon to act on teenage fluttering. My kids needed my full attention during this transition period, and that could be nine months long and followed by another transition if we returned to New York when my parents came home.

But none of that needed figuring out now.

No, now I just needed to make it until noon when reinforcements would show up.

I could do this. One minute at a time.

CHAPTER SIX

NOVA

“I want to play football,”Ben said, tossing his backpack on the floor and climbing onto a stool. The apartment was small—we’re talking a quarter of the size of our New York place—and it had no kitchen table, so we used stools at the counter Gigi had on hand. It worked for us. Alice went to the bedroom she shared with Ben, carrying her backpack, and closed the door.

I pulled an apple from the fridge to make an after-school snack and paused with the fruit over the sink. “Football,” I repeated. “Do you know what it is?”

“We play at recess,” he said defensively. “Pete’s on a team where you get to pull flags from the other kids. It sounds fun.”

“I bet the teams are already full, babe.”

Ben shook his head, his eyes widening. “No, Pete said I can still join them. His dad is the coach, and they haven’t started games yet.”

I stared at him. Was this a Texas thing? Him wanting to fit in? In Ben’s eight and a half years of life, he’d never once been interested in sports. I didn’t know if he even had the hand-eye coordination for it. “Do you want to see if the school has aLEGO club? Or maybe see if Pete wants to come over for aStar Warsmovie night?”

On my laptop, since we still didn’t have a couch or a TV.

Ben looked at his hands.

I immediately knew I’d said the wrong thing. “If you want to try football, I can speak to the adults in charge, but I’m not making any promises. I don’t know what it will cost.” My voice gentled. “You know our situation has changed.”

Ben got down from the stool on a weary sigh that reached right through my ribcage and tore my heart in two.

I looked over his small frame, his sad brown eyes. Maybe flag football was a good way to introduce him to the game and make him realize it wasn’t really his cup of apple juice. “Will you ask Pete for his dad’s phone number tomorrow? Or give him mine?”

“I already did.” He dug around in his backpack and pulled out a piece of paper with a phone number in messy, childish handwriting.

Cold calling a stranger wasn’t on my list of comfortable situations, but Ben’s pleading eyes had a magic of their own. It was amazing what I would do for my kid. I took the paper. “Eat your snack and get started on your homework. I’ll look into this.”

Ben’s face lit up. He jumped like his body could not contain his excited energy, bouncing on his toes. “Thanks, Mom! You’re the best!”

“I haven’t made any promises,” I reminded him. “Just eat your snack, and we’ll see what Pete’s dad says.”

He grinned, diving into his sliced apples with peanut butter and ignoring his celery. I went to find Alice and pulled her from the Barbie wedding ceremony on her bedroom floor. The groom was a stuffed Minion, which was no surprise, since she’d been obsessed with them since I’d shown her the firstDespicable Meat the age of three.

Alice made her way to the counter via a sequence of somersaults.

I watched her. “What are you doing?”

“Kendall taught me to roll, but I need more practice.” She stopped when she reached the kitchen’s linoleum floor and got to her feet.

---