Single Mom Seeks... by TERESA HILL Page B

there and wait for life to come to you. You have to get out and meet it sometimes,” Marcy claimed.
    “I may meet my hairstylist and get my hair done,” she said.
    Best she could do.
    Marcy sighed heavily, as if Lily’s life was such a chore that Marcy had to manage.
    “I like getting my hair done!” Lily said.
    Truly, she did.
    It was nice and quiet in the salon, and she loved having someone else fuss over her hair. Just getting it washed felt good, and that little bit of scalp massage, and then having someone run their fingers through her hair….
    It was Lily’s turn to sigh in anticipation.
    “There. What was that?” Marcy asked.
    “That was me, thinking about getting my hair done. I really do like it.”
    “Is your hairdresser by any chance straight and male?”
    Lily laughed, getting down on her hands and knees to look under the bed for Brittany’s other shoe. “I wish!”
    Having a cute, straight, single man fussing with her hair sounded really, really good.
    She closed her eyes, seeing herself in the chair at the salon, practically purring with happiness, saw him smiling appreciatively at her in the salon mirror, felt big, strong, capable hands running through her hair….
    Lily sighed once again, maybe groaned a bit.
    Her imaginary hair-guy leaned down, lifting a handful of her hair to his face to smell it, then let his warm mouth settle against her neck. She watched in the mirror and then realized…
    It was Nick.
    “Ahhh!” Lily cried, coming out of her little stupor in the blink of an eye.
    “Oh, wow. You must have a cute, straight hairdresser!” Marcy cried.
    “I do not!” Lily insisted.
    She had a cute—and she felt certain—straight neighbor who’d nearly nibbled on her neck to keep another woman away from him, and she’d been having wicked, wildly distracting thoughts about him ever since.
    That was all.
    “If you don’t tell me everything right this minute—”
    “Gotta go,” Lily interrupted. “I hear Richard’s car in the driveway.”
    “Spit on him for me,” Marcy said. “Bye.”
    Lily got off the phone, grabbed the girls’ bags and hurried downstairs, hating this whole exchange-of-the-children ritual. She tried to be civil, tried not to be nervous or mad or sad or anything, tried to be as neutral in her emotions and her speech as could be, and yet it was just so awkward and so hard.
    To think that she and Richard would ever be shuffling their girls back and forth this way, disrupting their lives, changing everything, was still unbelievable.
    The girls were in the family room playing on the computer. Lily yelled to them that their father had arrived as she carried their bags downstairs to the front door. She wanted to hand them over quickly, smiling somehow as she did it, and then hide in her house for a while, trying not to think of how quiet it was, how odd, how sad.
    She made it outside, bags in hand, to find Richard standing on the driveway surveying the place like he was trying to figure out what it was worth at the moment, then looking uneasy as he saw her.
    He pulled out his phone, checked it or at least pretended to, probably just trying to avoid talking to her, and then got a funny look on his face. Lily tried to remember what the admittedly handsome face had looked like when he’d so coldly told her he was walking out on her and the girls and had the nerve to think she shouldn’t have been surprised or particularly upset. To remember that pretty packages didn’t necessarily hold good things or good men inside of them, and that she didn’t ever want to be fooled in that way again. That attraction could fizzle out and disappear so quickly, and a woman might be surprised at how little was left.
    And then before she got too mad, she tried to just get the exchange over with.
    “The girls are on their way,” Lily said, talking too fast. “I double-checked their bags. They should have everything they need, including some cold medicine, in case Ginny’s nose is