"Not everyone is meant to have a happy ending."
Dating is difficult.
Dating with a child? Even more so.
Victoria James was already willing to give up the dating scene at the age of twenty-four until her best friend had persuaded her to try just one...
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Ah, winter's first snow. It's both captivating and agitating.
Even though Izzy is a wonderful kid, getting her up extra early in the morning is as if I've summoned the devil himself. To top it all off, there was a layer of ice and snow I still needed to remove from my windshield and I had to drop her off at her preschool before going to work this morning. Not to mention, I absolutely despised driving in the snow. The weatherman predicted that it wouldn't even snow for another week, but by now, I should know better than to trust the man on the news that always stutters on the word precipitation.
"Isabelle James quit playing with your food! We need to go in fifteen minutes if I'm going to get to work on time and you still need to brush your teeth and put on your socks, shoes, and big coat." I huff as I try to grab all of her strewn-about toys from last night that I was too lazy to pick up before bed.
"I don't want to go to school today." She whines, stabbing her eggs with her fork repeatedly.
"Too bad!" I yell from my bathroom with a mouth full of toothpaste before spitting it out into the sink, "Mommy has work."
She groans out angrily, but when I pop around the corner ready to scold her for her little attitude this morning, she jumps in her seat with tears forming in her eyes. Before I can say anything to her, we hear a knock on the door that puts a pin in the whole conversation.
"You got lucky just now, little girl. Eat your eggs. I'm not going to tell you again. Do you understand me?" I demand on my way to the front door.
"Yes ma'am." She sniffles as she begins to shove as much food into her mouth as she can without choking.
"Who is it?" I call out, trying to look through the peephole, but don't see anyone.
"Uh, it's your neighbor from the floor below you. Andrew."
Opening the door, he stands back upright from fixing his boot and smiles at me. His icy blue eyes were bewitching against his almost black shade of hair peeking out from under the hood of his down coat.
I had seen him a few times over the years of living here. Most of the time, our conversations were short, although pleasant, and he was always nice enough to help me carry my grocery bags to my doorstep if he was around. Beyond that though, we never really interacted much and I think my confused expression gave him a clue as to what I was thinking.
"I know it's early, but I had scraped the ice and snow off of your windshield when I did mine. I, uh, just wanted to let you know." He smiles as he kicks some more snow off of his boots.
"Thank you, Andrew. That was very nice of you." I return a smile to him before looking back at Izzy who's furrowing her brow at me.
"Yeah, no problem. I know you have to get your little girl off to school and go to work and since I was already out there, I thought it may help if I did yours, too."
