Page 33 of Love Expert

“You can’t think of anything?” she presses. “Nothing at all?”

“Well… he doesn’t really choose things for himself.” Thoughtful, he focuses on her again. “My dad smiles a lot when we play basketball out the back. And he smiles a lot when I show him how good I’m getting at the gym. And he smiles a lot on my mom’s birthday, when he takes me to the shops to buy her flowers?—”

“Dude.” I drop my head back and groan. “Make it stop. Please.”

“But all those things are things forme. Because I asked to play basketball. Or because I learned something new at the gym. Or because I asked to buy the flowers.” He pauses for a beat, crunching on a prawn chip, then he leans forward and warms the side of my face with his stare. “What would make you the happiest, Dad?”

“I’m happy when you’re happy.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, and when that doesn’t relieve the pressure pounding in the back of my skull, I shove up from the couch, set my dinner on the table, and turn into the kitchen. “That’s what makes me the happiest of all, buddy.”

“Makes him a really great dad,” Maggie whispers to my son.

I don’t know what she does, but she elicits a giggle from somewhere deep in his belly, then the sound of Spy Kids plays through the house again, and a moment after that, her footsteps pitter-patter against the hardwood floors.

Frustrated, I walk all the way to the sink and fold my palms over the lip. I stare out the window into my backyard, where the grass and edges are perfect, but the number of balls we currently own again, now that Maggie has tossed them back, is overwhelming.

He kept losing them, so we kept buying them. Now we have more than we can handle, and a neighbor I thinksecretlyenjoys when they land in her yard, all so she can stand at the fence and drop it back into ours.

“You’re trying to convince me you’re a bad person, but I’m not buying what you’re selling, Detective.”

“It’s gonna be your own fault when complaints arrive in your email inbox. That bastard Billy Caster is disrespecting the women you set him up with.”

“Nah.” She stops in the doorway, her reflection bouncing off the window right in front of me, so I catch her sweet smile and her armsfolding across her chest. “You don’t disrespect women. This is all just a defense mechanism because you’re afraid of losing someone again.”

“Okay, thanks, Dr. Phil. We done now?”

“You hardly need to do anything. Just let me find you some nice women to spend time with. We’ll make Aria an off-limits topic, I’ll help you select a tie, and even prepare palm cards with conversation starters, in case you get stuck. You take them out to dinner, leave their panties in one piece, unless…” She shrugs behind me. “Ya know, you both decide you’d like to try taking them off. Drive her home. Peck on the cheek if you’re both feeling it.Don’tcriticize her outfit, and don’t go on a verbal rampage about how love is for losers and weaklings. Bada bing, bada boom. You’ve got yourself a successful date.”

“Or…” I turn and lean back against the sink. “You’re in my house right now. We even had a meal together. I pour you a glass of water, walk your ass back onto my porch, say nothing unkind about your dress from the nunnery, and then I slam the door in your face. Bada bing, that’s a date and, in the most technical sense, your obligations are complete.” I flash a wide grin. “Works, right?”

“No.” she drawls. “Because the date can’t be with me. That would be a conflict of interest. And the point of all this is to find love.Notto go through the motions, just so you can slam the door in my face and call it a day.”

“Magnolia! I don’t want to do this!”

“Wilbert! I don’t really care. If you didn’t want to win the prize, you shouldn’t have accepted the damn ticket. If you weren’t interested in dating, you wouldn’t have attended a singles event.”

“I did it to support Alana’s bookstore! I did it to support a friend who wanted to support a friend. Everyone knows that place is operating in the red, and Ollie said I had to go. That doesnotmean I was signing up for a fucking…” Exasperated, I gesture her way. “Magnolia Sava package. Which is a really weird thing to call it, by the way. Sounds like you’re selling ass.”

“How could I possibly sell ass when you have the entire market share of ass right there, spilling out of your mouth?” She shoves off the wall and steamrolls across the room, stopping only when her shoes touch mine and her perfume dominates the air I breathe. “I liked that boy from second grade, just so you know. I liked him a lot, and though I know those Spiderman undies weren’t yours, they still made me smile, because I know you were a fan of Spiderman back then, too. Ramone offered me a pony tattoo under the bleachers that time, because hethought that’s what girls liked. But I saw the Spiderman one and took it for myself.”

“You…” My stomach swishes and swirls, somersaulting and aching. “What?”

“My dad died,” she murmurs, seductively licking her lips.Fuck, I can practically taste her breath in the air.“He was my favorite boy on the planet, but after he was gone, my mom packed our things and made us leave the only town I’d ever known. That’s when I lost my second favorite boy on the planet. Both in the same month.” She brings her shoulder up in a shrug. “It’s silly, I know, because we were just kids, and little girls shouldnotspend twenty-five years wondering how that boy from second grade was doing. But I did, and then I had the good fortune of moving in next door to him.”

“Magnolia—”

“But that’s where my luck ended, because it turns out that boy no longer exists. Now there’s just you, and the you you are right now is not the you you were back then.Thatboy would never speak to me the way you have these last few weeks.” She thrusts a hand toward the living room. “But that little boy in there, the one who wears Spiderman undies and has an unhealthy obsession with prawn chips, he reminds me of the one I used to know. He deserves a dad who smiles the way you smiled in those photos on your mantel. I’m not saying that a date will fix your troubles and bring that smile back?—”

“You’re not?”

“No. But you claim to have thirty-seven seconds to yourself each calendar month. Perhaps what you need most of all is a chance to stretch those thirty-seven seconds into something a little more. An evening here, an evening there. It can’t hurt, right?”

Glancing down, she stares at a lock of her hair curled around my fingers.

Fuckkkkkk. When did I grab it?

“You used to do that when we were kids, too.” She takes a single step back and gently tugs the lock free. “I swear, my heart melted when Jeremy did the same an hour ago. Your son is adorable, Billy. I fully acknowledge that the circumstances are tragic, and you’re right; it’s really,reallynot fair that you lost Aria. But I hope you have the good sense to pause sometimes, look at that boy, and remember everything good about him is because of you. If you try hard enough, you might even remember who you used to be, too.” She takes another step back. “I miss that boy.”

“Magnolia—”