Page 87 of Mom Com

Claudette grins, her whole face lighting up. “I’ll admit, it was no easy feat taming this wild woman.”

“I want to hear all about it,” I say, leaning in conspiratorially.

“Here we go,” Liv says, shaking her head at both of us.

“Did you know,” Claudette says, lowering her voice like she’s letting me in on a secret. “That she wakes up earlyeverymorning she’s in the city to walk to my favorite deli and bring me breakfast in bed?”

I fake shock. “No! Liv... that sounds dangerously like hopeless romanticism.”

“For everyone’s information,” Liv says, “I feed Claudette because she’s vicious in the morning, not because I’m a good person.”

Claudette pinches Liv’s cheek. “Isn’t she cute?”

“The cutest,” I agree.

“I should never have introduced you two,” Liv protests.

Only my laugh gets cut short when I spot Kate across the room talking to Mrs. Buenaventura. Liv follows my gaze. While I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything—she was probably invited by Wilder’s parents, like the rest of the town, not by him personally—my last interaction with Kate is still too clear in my mind not to feel a pang of nerves.

“I know,” Liv agrees, eyeing Kate in a way that says she finds her wanting.

Mrs. Buenaventura leans into Kate with a laugh, placing a hand on her arm like they’re best chums, upping my pang to a more pervasive unease. I want to ask Liv the particulars, but I think the better of it—getting confirmation that Kate is close with her parents is not going to make me feel any calmer.

Liv must see it on my face because she diverts. “So,” she says. “I want to hear all about what happened last night. Wilder wouldn’t breathe a word and instead walked around all day lit up like Rudolph’s nose. But first, how about we get you a drink?”

As if he sensed we were discussing him, Wilder appears next to us in black slacks with shiny shoes, a white button-down, and a dark hunter-green sweater with wooden buttons, his hair freshly washed and wavy, a couple of pieces sneaking their way down his forehead. And when he looks at me, I swear my stomach leaps in the air, bottoming out on its way back down.

“I’d be happy to get you something, Maddi,” he offers, staring at me as though he would close the distance between us if we weren’t in a room with other people, and like he’s considering doing it anyway.

I swallow, taken aback by the intensity of his gaze. “Sure,” I agree, unable to look away even though I’m certain Liv is reading into it. “I’ll, uh, go get it with you.”

Liv chuckles lightly and Claudette elbows her in the ribs. “You two have fun now,” Liv says, wagging her eyebrows at me like she’s a sixteen-year-old boy with a filthy mind.

I give Liv a halfhearted glare over my shoulder, which only seems to increase her enjoyment.

Wilder offers me his arm and I take it, slipping my own through his elbow and resting my fingers lightly on his forearm as we walk away. I can feel the heat of him under his sweater, and it suddenly occurs to me that I didn’t hesitate in moving toward him the way I would have twenty-four hours ago. And with each step, I vacillate between enjoying his proximity, my heart warmly firing in my chest, and the bright little stomach flips that remind me of alarm bells—my body trying to warn me that I’ve crossed my own boundary line and am no longer on protected land.

As though he could sense my floundering, he pulls his arm in reassuringly, bringing me in with it, leaning down to speak to me like he’s sharing a secret.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” he says, and my heart plays my ribs like a drum solo.

“Is that so?” I manage, enjoying him more than I should.

I can smell the lingering fireplace aroma on his clothes, mixed with a heady almond scent of clean soap, and it’s all that I have not to lean in closer. I almost laugh. Get it together, Maddi. Twenty-seven-year-olds aren’t supposed to lose their minds over one kiss; that’s just not how it works.

“There’s something I want to show you,” he says, a smirk pulling up the corners of his mouth. “Unless you want to grab that drink first—”

“The drink can wait,” I say too quickly, and his smirk graduates to a grin. Perfect. What’s next? Maybe I should just strip naked and crawl seductively across his parents’ carpet since subtlety clearly isn’t my thing.

“Wonderful,” he says, and leads me through the foyer where I catch a glimpse of Spence down the hall, animatedly telling a story and surrounded by young people.

Wilder leads us through the doorway into the library, which is well populated like the rest of his house, but feels strangely intimate, a room Wilder and I spent more time in than any other. The fireplace is lit, the couch across from it strewn with navy and maroon pillows, and the mahogany shelves that line the walls tower above us.

“I found something the other day,” he says, leading us around the people and to the window on the far wall that I sometimes climbed through when we were teens. “Something I had completely forgotten about. To tell the truth, I’m surprised no one found it. But then again, my parents never did use this room much.”

I watch him as he opens the drawer in a small reading table and pulls out a folded piece of paper. He stands there for a moment, turning it over in his fingers.

“I, uh, wrote this after that fight we had on the beach, the one right before prom,” he says, and hands it to me. “I carried it around for a week in my pocket, then stashed it here.” He chuckles lightly at the memory.