When we got into the house, I saw the controlled chaos that erupted around every small child. Annabelle’s toys were everywhere in that house. I narrowly avoided stepping on some Legos. She bounded out of her father’s arms and said, “Play princess?”
“The adults have to cook, pumpkin,” Logan gently admonished her. “Plus, you play princess every day.”
Annabelle’s lip started to jut out. “How about Peppa Pig?”
“Peppa Pig!” Annabelle shouted. “Hurray!”
“I limit her screen time,” said Logan. “I only whip it out when it’s necessary to distract her. If she wasn’t addicted to Peppa Pig, I’d be in trouble.”
It was so weird to think of Logan being a responsible adult with screen time limits for his kid. When we had been in high school, he could stay up all night playing video games like Call of Duty with his friends. Now, he was on the other side of the concerned parent telling the kid to turn off their electronics. What a bizarre feeling.
Logan started pulling out the mise en place for chicken parmesan. His kitchen had two ovens, which made me ask, “Why do you have two ovens?”
“Ex-wife,” said Logan.
In most ways, it was a dream kitchen to cook in. Logan and I started to prep chicken breasts. He had everything ready to go. It was simple and fun to cook chicken parmesan with him. He pre-heated the oven while I rolled the chicken breasts in breadcrumbs. Chicken parmesan was one of our favorite meals and always had been. He had a portion of the plate loaded with Annabelle’s chicken nuggets with parmesan on top of them. With a quick twist of a hand, he loaded the glassware into the top-most oven and set a timer.
“If I put it into the lower one, Annabelle always wants to take a peek. She hit her head once using it as a jungle gym.”
“I like to swing,” announced Annabelle from her play area, still watching Peppa Pig.
“She got a good goose egg out of it,” commented Logan. “She loves watching baking shows.”
“Who doesn’t?” I asked rhetorically.
Annabelle started dancing around the living room, swinging her little stuffed dog around and singing to herself. She looked like she was busy.
“So how have you been?” I asked Logan.
“Busy. Keeping track of the kid and running my business is no joke.”
“What happened to Romi?”
“We were two different people. I can’t regret Annabelle, but Romi had no intention of being a mom, really. She couldn't get out of here fast enough with some of our liquid cash. Luckily, my business was small enough for her not to ask for stock. And being my own boss has been a godsend since Annabelle still naps and I can get a nanny part-time for when I need to go to meetings. And the home office is big enough for her playpen, or it was when she was smaller.”
“Logan Simpson, stay-at-home dad.”
“Who knew?” said Logan. “It’s been fun. I don’t think she misses her mother very much. We split when Annabelle was one, so she doesn’t have a lot of memories of the two of us together. Romi has every other weekend, but she rarely shows up. She had a tummy tuck and other work done. The last I heard, she was living in California. She sends birthday and Christmas gifts, but that’s about it.”
I was stunned. Who wouldn’t want to spend all their time with a beautiful little girl like Annabelle, especially if she was 50% made of her DNA? She was so stinking cute. She was obviously used to amusing herself, given the way that she was now attempting cartwheels in her play space. Logan had obviously raised a very independent child.
“And you?”
“I went to Harvard after IU,” I said.
“Yeah, my mom told me.”
“I pulled together a business plan for a publishing business. The old way of publishing was to print a bunch of books and hope for the best. I run a publishing business that takes advantage of being digital-first before we commit to doing print runs. All our decisions are data-driven based on the performance of e-books.”
“Sounds fancy,” commented Logan.
“It’s a lot of fun. I have a bunch of good editors with good instincts. At the beginning, it was just me and a slush pile. Now, I have industry veterans who have good noses and can tell which books pass the sniff test.”
“I don’t have much time to read nowadays. I’m always chasing after the Munchkin.”
“It’s weird to have reading be my job,” I said. “Normally, my acquisitions editors handle most things, but I read all of the works that make the final cut. We have a unique revenue structure that heavily rewards authors who can turn their books into bestsellers.”
“What about movies? Have any of your books been turned into films?”
“There’s at least one startup that does independent films based off of romances. We’ve sold film rights to a bunch of our titles, but none of them have come to fruition.” I licked my lips, which I noticed he followed with his eyes. “What does a girl have to do to get a cold drink around here?”
“Do you drink IPAs?” asked Logan. “I don’t drink too much heavy stuff with the Munchkin around.”
“IPA is fine,” I responded, shrugging my shoulders. “I’m not too choosy about beer.”
“It’s Hoosier beer,” he slung back, taking two beers out of the fridge and using a magnetic bottle opener from the fridge to open them up. The bottle opener had a smiling real estate agent on it and a phone number.
I took the first sip, which went down smoothly. “Do you remember how weird it was to realize that we had almost identical tastes in food and drink?”
Logan smiled. “Yup.”
Both of us were remembering that we pretty much liked or preferred everything the other did. We were both addicted to Garden Salsa Sun Chips in high school. I guessed that Romi hadn’t done the same with him, from the way that his smile started to fade. I’d touched on a memory he’d rather forget.
Annabelle bounded into the kitchen and pulled my hand. “You put the chicken away,” she said. “Now it’s time to play with me.”
Chapter 5
She tugged me into their living room, which I gingerly stepped into. Her toys covered most of the available surfaces. “Now you get to be a princess, and I’m the queen like Elsa,” said Annabelle. She put a plastic sparkly tiara on my head. She had a queen’s crown with sequins on it.
“What are we playing?” I asked, charmed by her self-confidence.
“Tea party,” she said with an implied duh in her voice. She had a toy tea set that was pink. I sat there trying not to giggle as she gravely poured out pretend tea into our teacups. “Daddy doesn’t like sitting here.”
It was really hard not to laugh. The seats at her tea table were miniscule. There wasn’t a chance that Logan fit on these chairs. I was sitting with my legs criss-cross applesauce to fit at the table. I lifted my teacup to my mouth before she shrieked, “Not yet! Our party isn’t complete yet.”
“Sorry,” I quickly blurted out. “Who else needs to come?”
“Daddy,” she said firmly.
“Last time I played tea party, my knees ached for two days,” Logan commented.