I nodded. “Got mail today. She’s having a great time. Apparently, she passed the swim test, made two bracelets, and ate something called campfire nachos.”
“That sounds either amazing or disgusting,” she laughed.
“Both, probably.”
“Mila sent a letter too. She’s having a blast.” Catherine’s smile shifted into something softer. “She added a P.S. for me. She said her and Isla love and miss me.”
Catherine loved my daughter. Not in some vague, polite way. Another reason she was dangerous.
“Kids,” I said, because apparently that was all my dumb mouth could manage.
“Yeah.” She looked up. “They get you.”
“They really do.”
For a second, the condo went quiet.
I gestured toward the table. “Sit before the food gets cold.”
She slipped into one of the chairs, and I brought over the chicken, pasta, roasted vegetables, and salad.
Catherine looked at the food and then at me. “You made this?”
“No, I ordered it and rubbed flour on my shirt for the aesthetic,” I joked.
She laughed. “Sorry. I’m impressed.”
“You should be. I used more than one pan.” I laughed. “I’ve come a long way over the years.”
She took a bite of the pasta first, and I watched her face because I was suddenly more nervous than I had been before playoff games.
Her eyes closed for half a second. “Okay, this is really good.”
My chest did something stupid. “Yeah?”
“Really good.” She took another bite. “You can cook.”
“I had to learn.”
“Because of Isla?”
I nodded, cutting into my chicken. “When she was little, I realized I couldn’t feed her takeout and frozen waffles forever. My mom helped, Quinn helped, but I wanted to know how to make real meals for her.”
“That’s sweet.”
“It was survival,” I admitted.
I looked at her across the table. Candlelight caught in her hair and made the damp strands look darker. Her shoulder was still bare where the sweatshirt slipped, and I was trying very hard not to look. This was the problem. Dinner with Catherine was easy. I had expected the tension. I expected to want her. I did not expect her to fit across from me at my dining table like she’d been there before.
I took a drink of sparkling water. “This is part of what I mean.”
She glanced up. “What?”
“The stage-of-life thing.”
Her face shifted. “Ah. Here we go.”
“I’m serious.”