Page 3 of Flirty Thirty

“I can’t imagine why,” I tease, then press a kiss to Chase’s head and swivel around to take a seat at my dining table. The first few times Katie made my birthday cake for me, I stood around asking if I could help with anything with awkward, mumbled words. Now that it’s an annual thing—and we’re much closer now—I pull up a high-backed, velvety dining chair and chat while she experiments. She used to make every cake from scratch, but since the kids came, box mixes have become the norm. I’mnotcomplaining; cake is cake, and I’m thrilled to have a sister-in-law who cares enough to feed me chocolate even in her chaotic life.

“Want to hear a funny story?” I ask, settling in with Chase in my seat.

“Always.”

“I got kissed this morning.”

Her eyes widen, and she accidentally cracks egg shell into the bowl. “Oh! Did Vince come over?”

It takes everything in me to not respond with, “Who?”Vince, Vince… do I know a Vince?

Katie laughs, my confusion obviously written all over my face. She shakes her head and looks down at the cake mix as she picks out the shell pieces. “Well, that explains why I never heard anything about…Claire! Please stoooop…that particular date fromeitherof you. I guess I have to take matchmaker off of my resume.”

My niece finally eases up, flopping her arms down on the tile and silently huffing at the ceiling. If the girl had a white flag, it would soon rise above her defeated little body. With the sudden drop in noise, my brain is able to conjure up a blurry memory of a blind date I had not too long ago, but obviously long enough.

I laugh at myself, giving Katie an apologetic grin. “Right… Vince. He was… fun.”

“You’re a horrible liar.”

“Only with you.” She should see me in my realtor’s blazer. I could sell a sandbox to a fish.

She rolls her eyes and searches for a whisk. “So, who was he?”

“He’s… well, I’m not really su—”

A tug on my pant leg pulls my attention down to my niece and her watery eyes.

“Neeta darou wing. Pweese?”

I raise an eyebrow to the two-year-old translator. Katie leans against the counter as she stirs. “Do you have anything she can color on?”

“Drawer right by your hip. I should have some notepad paper in there.” I’ve long since learned not to ask how in the world she knew what the toddler was saying. Moms have super powers—ones I cannot fathom ever possessing.

“Here you go, sweetie,” Katie says, handing over a notepad and the attached pencil. I smile at the fact that she still calls that screaming child “sweetie.” Katie tells her to go color at the coffee table in the other room, and then she turns to me. “Sorry. You were kissed this morning…?”

“Yes.” I pause not only for emphasis, but to leave room for any more possible interruptions. “By anew neighbor I’ve spoken maybe four words to.”

She jerks her head, her nose wrinkling upward as if the cake was suddenly made with rotten eggs. “Please elaborate.”

I lean in, granting her request, even telling her in great detail the cut lines on this man. She listens with intense fascination, stirring the cake batter so lazily that I bet the ingredients could easily be separated. I’m not much of a story teller, never having stories to tell, so I really get into this one. After all, it’s not every day you get kissed by a Grecian God.

“Wow,” she says, her voice still laced with shock. She pushes up off her arm, straightening to mix the batter accurately now that I’m done talking. “I hope he doesn’t have herpes.”

I snort, but there’s a plunge in my stomach that makes me shift Chase in my arms. That would be just my luck; I better keep my lips away from the baby until I know I’m in the clear.

“What’d you say to him?” she asks as she digs for a cake pan in the drawer under my oven.

“Nothing. He took off before I even realized what was happening.”

She sets the glass pan on the counter and nibbles on her bottom lip. “Hmm.”

“What?”

“Maybe we should stay with you tonight.”

Claire starts singing with her very powerful vocal chords from the other room.

“I’m good. I really think he’s harmless.”

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