“Have you been in here before?” I asked, glancing back at Nora as I flipped on the light.
“Not officially,” she said, stepping inside and taking in the large room with its four levels of oversized couches that stepped down toward a massive screen on the far wall. “I peeked my head in here when some guys were playing video games during your surprise birthday party. But Charlotte and I usually watch our afternoon movie upstairs since using a projector is a little out of my wheelhouse.”
“There is a bit of a learning curve,” I agreed as I set the popcorn on the small table between the middle row of seats.
“It’s really nice, though,” she said, glancing around at the old movie posters lining the walls. “Who needs to go to a theater when you’ve got this?”
“My thoughts exactly,” I said, stepping over to the cabinet at the back of the room to grab the remote that controlled the projector.
The machine hummed to life overhead.
“Alisha and I always imagined this being a fun hangout spot for our kids when they were teenagers.”
“You definitely have the setup for the partyhouse,” Nora said with a smile. “That’s something I always wanted for my future kids, too. A place where they can hang out with their friends, but I’m still close enough to make sure they stay out of trouble.”
“That’s always been my hope, too,” I said with a chuckle, liking that we shared the same instinct there.
“Were you a troublemaker when you were a teenager?” she asked, leaning casually against the back of one of the couches in the top row.
“I might have had a bit of a rebellious streak.” I felt a half smile tug at my mouth as I thought back to those years.
“Really?” she asked, sounding genuinely surprised. “What kind of things did you do?” Her eyes sparkled with amusement. “Was Daddy Theo a bad boy at one point?”
I laughed quietly, noticing she’d used that nickname again.
“I don’t know if I qualify for the official title of bad boy,” I said as I scrolled through the streaming menu, looking forTangled. “But I might have snuck out to see a girlfriend once or twice. Borrowing my parents’ car at the same time.”
“Oh wow,” Nora said dryly. “What a rebel.”
“You know it.”
I pulled up the movie and got it queued.
“What about you?” I asked. “Got a dark and torrid past I should know about?”
She pretended to think about it for a moment. Then a mischievous smile crept across her face. “Well… I did have a sleepover at a friend’s house once when her parents weren’t home.”
I frowned slightly. “Wait. What’s so bad about that? Were you not allowed to have sleepovers?” I was already on the fence about what I was going to do when Charlotte got old enough to start asking for them.
“The bad part,” Nora said, “is that my parents assumedthere were adults there.” She paused for effect. “But nope. We were completely unchaperoned the whole time.”
My eyebrows lifted.
“And,” she added with a smirk, “we even snuck out at midnight to drive to the gas station a few blocks away and buy slushies.”
“What a bad, bad girl you were.” I laughed.
“What can I say?” She shrugged innocently. “I like living life on the edge.”
“I can see that.” I shook my head, amused. “Should I be concerned that such a rule breaker is in charge of my three-year-old all day?”
“Maybe,” she said with a small shrug. “But that was when I was seventeen.” She paused. “So… like five years ago.”
She’d been seventeen only five years ago?
Geez.
She really was so much younger than me.