Mary and Halley (sequel to When Mary Met Halley)

one

"I love your shirt," I told Gwen, admiring the rainbow unicorn on it as I stirred noodles. "Where'd you get it?"

She hesitated, exchanging glances with Ruby, who was sitting cross-legged on my counter. "Um," she answered, raising my eyebrows. 

"She got it from Caleb's new girlfriend," Ruby said matter-of-factly. "Courtney. She's not terrible. At least not as terrible as the last one." She rolled her eyes with all the sass an eleven-year-old can muster, eating chocolate frosting from a can. 

I was over Caleb to the point that it didn't even give me a twinge to hear about his latest love interest, the fourth in the last year. "That's good," I said mildly, aware of Gwen watching for my reaction. 

"And it is a cool shirt," Ruby continued. "She's totally trying to buy her way into his life, though, if you ask me."

I grinned at her assessment and looked at Gwen. "Is this true?"

She shrugged. "Probably. But whatever."

We heard Halley's car door slam, and Ruby slid down to unlock the front door. She returned a minute later with a brown paper bag in her arms, the handles covering part of her face. She set it on the floor to go through in search of more sugar.

And then Halley came in, bringing a little of the crispy air with her, a red and orange leaf tangled in her hair. My heart stumbled even as it sped up and I dropped the spaghetti fork I held.

She smiled that thousand watt smile, releasing her own shopping bag along with her purse so she could walk into my open arms. "Hi," she said, pressing her vanilla-chapstick-flavored lips to mine. "I missed you."

"Hi," I answered foolishly, running my hands through her cold hair, marveling for the billionth time that I could. "I missed you too. How was the visit?"

She had started doing supervised visits for family court a few months back, after taking a short training class and getting fingerprinted. She made good money and was rarely gone more than four hours at a time, which was ideal. And most of all, she helped keep kids safe.

We had required my mom to have supervised visits with the little kids for six months after her return to our lives, though we didn't anymore. She had proven she could be trusted with them for a few hours at a time at our house, though someone else was usually around. I still kept my distance to some extent because I'm a wary fucker.

Halley kissed me again and then once more before finally letting go. "It smells so good in here. Um, it wasn't great. The oldest girl cried half the time and the younger one kept asking her mom if she really remembered her,  because she hasn't seen them in three months, so those parts sucked." She got a spoon out and tasted the spaghetti sauce simmering. "Oh my God, yum, I'm starving, I love you."

I heard that all the time but it never ceased to momentarily kick my joy level up several notches. "Ditto," I told her, pulling the leaf out of her hair before using tongs to pick a noodle out of the steaming pot. I tossed it at the wall, where it stuck. "Voila!" I tossed it in the garbage and wiped the wall off as I took the pot to drain over the sink.

Now that Halley and I had taken over, the house actually stayed clean for more than an hour. She was meticulous to the point where we had to talk her down from washing baseboards sometimes. We'd had everything painted inside and out, installed new carpeting, and replaced all the furniture. It was definitely home in every sense of the word. 

Mostly because she was there, but I was possibly biased. 

"Poor kids," Gwen lamented as she put food away, thinking of the kids who needed a stranger to see their own parent. Ruby was back on the counter with the icing container.