Page 37 of Sunsets & Slow Dances

Everyone in town idolized my dad, including my mom. She loved him. Even after finding out about Danielle and Chloe, she still never said one bad word against him. I’m not sure why no one else really saw the man I saw.

The only person who had ever seen him for who he was, who had seen me and made me feel calm and had been a safe place, was Nadia; that is, until I saw Jerry Clemons sneaking out of her house at six o’clock in the morning.

“Are you sure you’re okay with all of us staying here?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Ilovehaving you all here. I’m so happy I’m finally getting to know Chloe. She’s half your dad. I’ve felt terrible for her these past few years, with her mom being so sick and everything she must have gone through—how scared she must have been. I wanted to do more, but I never wanted to overstep.”

“You two do seem to be getting along.” When I got home from Nadia’s, the two of them were making TikTok videos in the kitchen of them baking bread from scratch.

“Chloe says I’m the OG Trad Wife.”

“Trad wife?”

“Traditional wife. Apparently, it’s a trend on TikTok. It’s women who make everything from scratch.”

It wasn’t exactly that, but since she seemed happy, I wasn’t going to burst her bubble. There was definitely more to a “trad wife” than just cooking things from scratch. It had to do with embracing traditional gender roles and prioritizing domestic duties like cooking and cleaning and opting to stay home and embodying the stereotypical housewife of the mid-20th century.

“I’m gonna go to bed.” I leaned down and kissed my mom on the top of her head.

I made it to the first step when she asked. “Did you and Nadia get a chance to talk?”

“Talk?” I looked over my shoulder.

“Yeah, talk.”

“We talked about her home repairs.”

“Was it good seeing her?” her tone was hopeful.

“Mom.” I knew exactly what she was doing.

“What?” she asked in faux innocence.

“Goodnight, Mom.” I turned and headed upstairs.

My mom wasn’t the first person who had asked me about Nadia since I’d been back in town, and I knew she wouldn’t be the last. I didn’t blame them. I had questions about her, about us, questions that I wanted answered; I just didn’t know how or when to ask them.

13

NADIA

Do. Not.Spy.

All day I’d had to actively fight the urge to ‘check in’ on Peanut, Butter, and Jelly. Typically, I only pulled up the pet cam app during my lunch hour just to make sure there weren’t any majorcatastrophes since the felines liked to destroy toilet paper, pillows, mail, and basically anything they could get their paws and fangs into. They were a dueling duo of tiny Tasmanian devils.

I’d been pulling up the pet cam a minimum of a dozen times throughout my workday. If I had even a minor excuse to look at my phone, I tapped on the app. It was a compulsion. If it were just today, that would be one thing. But this had been going on all week. The frequency of my ‘check-ins’ wouldn’t be an issue if it were Peanut, Butter, and Jelly, who I was seeing on my screen, but it wasn’t.

Every day, I’d been sneaking peeks at Callum working in my home. I spied with my little eye Callum sanding my hardwood floors, removing my kitchen cabinet doors, laying new treads on the staircase, and painting. I hadn’t seen him working on my bathrooms because I didn’t have pet cams in those rooms. But Idid have one on the window that faced out to the backyard and a doorbell cam, so I had seen him working on the front porch and the deck. Even though the temperatures were in the fifties, he’d taken off his shirt to work, and dear lord.

It felt so wrong that I kept watching him like a creep, but I couldn’t help myself. It was Callum. And he was in my house.

My finger hovered over the icon for the app once again, even though I told myself not to, my thumb pressed down on it. The screen filled with the image of him talking to Peanut, who was lying down beside Callum while he painted the kitchen cabinet doors. All week he’d been having conversations with Peanut, Butter, and Jelly, which was adorable. Even the cats, who didn’t likeanyone,followed him around like the feline Pied Piper. It shouldn’t surprise me that Callum attracted pussy.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Callum told Peanut, who was staring up at him with huge, adoring puppy dog eyes. “I just want to do what’s best for her, but I really think she doesn’t want anything to do with me. I don’t want to make her life any worse. I don’t know why her mom thought I should be the one to take care of her.”

Guilt washed over me. This was a private conversation. These were his private thoughts that I shouldn’t be listening to. This was clearly about Chloe. I felt so bad that he was struggling. I wished that I could be a sounding board for him. I might not have the answers, but this was the sort of thing we used to talk about.

My thumb hovered over the home button to close the screen when I heard my name. Well, not my name, but I heard myself being referred to.

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