“Chicken nuggets.”

I crossed my eyes and faced forward again. “Cereal or leftovers, Goo. We don’t have chicken nuggets.”

“Okay. Cereal.” Silence. Then he added, “Please.”

“Give me a few minutes, all right?”

Louie agreed and disappeared.

Dallas’s elbow hit me again as he rinsed off the second to last dish. “Why does he call you Buttercup?”

I laughed, remembering exactly why. “My brother used to call me that, but when Louie was still really little, my best friend used to babysit the boys, and they’d watch cartoons together. There’s this one we used to watch when we were probably thirteen called The Powerpuff Girls, and she’d take those DVDs over for them to watch. It’s these three little girls with superpowers, right? One of them is named Blossom, she was the nice, levelheaded one, and he said that was my best friend, Vanessa. And there’s another one named Buttercup. She has dark hair, and she’s the most aggressive of the bunch. She’s the loudmouth, tough one, and for some reason or another, Louie just insisted that was me. He’s been calling me Buttercup ever since.”

“But why did your brother call you that?”

I shot him a look out of the corner of my eye. “I used to watch The Princess Bride all the time and used to say I was going to marry someone just like Westley someday.”

He made a choking sound.

“Shut up,” I muttered before I could help myself.

Dallas made another sound that was something between a cough and a laugh. “How old were you?”

“How old was I what?”

“When you watched it all the time?”

I smiled at the dishes. “Twenty-nine?”

He laughed as he set the last plate on the drying rack at his side, his body turning in my direction as he raised his eyebrows, giving me this little smirk. “You remind me more of Princess Peach.”

I looked down at my shorts and tank top, and caught the ends of my multicolored brown hair courtesy of careful instruction to Ginny. “Because of my beautiful pink gown and blonde hair?”

Dallas’s mouth went flat. “She’s surrounded by men, but she’s still herself, and she’s got her shit together on Mario Kart.”

I couldn’t help but smile, taking in the sloping bone structure of his face and the way his mouth was shaped at a slant and said, “I always did think I should have been born a princess, Mr. Clean.”

The choke that came out of him made me laugh.

“Mr. Clean?” he eventually got out, all choppy and broken.

Peeking at him, I shrugged and tipped my chin toward his head.

“I have hair.”

I squinted at him and hummed, trying so hard not to laugh. “Uh-huh.”

“I shave it every two weeks,” he tried explaining.

“Okay,” I coughed out, my cheeks hurting from the effort not to laugh at how bent out of shape he was getting.

“It all grows in evenly—are you laughing at me?”

Chapter Fourteen

“Lou, you wanna go with me and see if Miss Pearl and Mr. Dallas want to come eat dinner with us?” I asked.

His hands paused on the remote in his hands as he seemed to mull over my proposal. “Mr. Dallas?”

“Yes.” Josh was over at his friend Kline’s house, so it was just the two of us. “Since he helped us with the backyard earlier,” I explained.

While I’d been in the middle of a shower, I came up with the idea of inviting him over for dinner as a thank-you for helping us clean up the yard hours ago. It was the least I could do. I knew he had leftovers, but that way they would last longer. He’d shown up at ten o’clock on the dot and stuck around for the next two hours, going above and beyond the neighborly and friendly call of duty.

Problem was, I didn’t want to make him feel weird. So I figured, why not invite his nana too? The nana I still didn’t understand he had.

With more grace than I figured the average five-year-old was capable of, Louie nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay, come on.” I gestured toward the door, and Mac, who was lying on the couch besides my kid, sat up, expectantly thinking he was going to get another walk. “I’m making your favorite at least, buster.”

“Chicken nuggets?” he gushed.

I blinked at him. “Spaghetti and meatballs.”

His shoulders slumped forward. “Oh. Yeah. I like that too.”

I sighed. “Let’s go.”

He followed me, pausing his game as he got to his feet. He’d dressed himself this morning and had on a bright green T-shirt with a pizza on it and red and black striped pajama pants. I thought about telling him to change, but who cared? It was only dinner.

Louie and I crossed the street, holding each other’s hands. I reached down and pinched him on the butt as we walked up the path to Dallas’s house, and halfway up the steps to the porch, the little turd smacked me on the butt. We were bickering as I knocked on the door and stood back, waiting. I wasn’t even sure if he was home or not. I was sticking my tongue out at Louie as the lock was turned.

I faced the door as it opened, expecting it to be a certain brown-haired, hazel-eyed man that I owed big time….

But it wasn’t him on the other side of the screen door.

It was a woman. A pretty, natural auburn-haired woman, and she was smiling. “Hi,” she said.

It took me maybe two seconds, but I managed to get out, “Hey. Is—”

The door opened wider and the woman stepped back as another face I recognized came forward with his eyebrows furrowed and the sides of a thinner mouth turned down into a frown. “Yeah?” was the ugly, unfinished greeting I got from the man I hadn’t seen in a while. Jackass Jackson.

“Hi. Is Dallas here?” I asked slowly, with as much patience as I could drag together—which wasn’t much, especially when this small part of my brain wondered if the woman was here with Jackson or… not.

She couldn’t be. Could she? Dallas wouldn’t do that, would he?

“What do you want?” Mr. Not-Mr.-Rogers asked.

I blinked and ground down on my teeth. “To talk to him.”

“Hold on,” Jackson droned, scowling as he closed the door in my face.

“Why is he so mean?” Lou asked almost immediately.

I shrugged at him and whispered, “Someone didn’t take a chill pill today.”

Moments later, the door opened wide. Dallas stood there, an uncomfortable expression on his face that didn’t sit well with me. “Hey.” His eyes landed on Lou and his smile got a little easier. “Hey, Lou.”

“Hi.”

“Hey. I didn’t know you had company again, sorry,” I explained quickly.

“Don’t apologize,” he said crisply. “He just got here.”

Did that mean the woman had already been there?

It’s none of my business. None.

“Well, we just came by to see if you wanted to come by for dinner as a thank-you for helping us clean up this morning,” I explained.

I tried not to let the way he barely scrunched up his nose hurt my feelings, but it did, just a little.

“I was going to invite Miss Pearl, too. We’re making spaghetti and meatballs.”