She led the way toward the snack aisle. Noah leaned on the handle and followed her. The store was all but deserted after eleven.

“Besides some ill-advised second basing, what else do you do for fun?” Cat asked, tossing a bag of tortilla chips and a jar of queso into the cart.

“I’ve been busy lately.”

“Basketball on the weekends with the guys?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“Whiskey club?”

“Huh-uh.”

“Book club? Darts? Karaoke? Running 5ks? Collecting baseball cards?”

“All nos,” Noah admitted.

Cat snapped her fingers. “Ballroom dancing?”

Noah grabbed a bag of pretzels and tossed it into the cart. “Do I look like the ballroom dancing type?”

Cat shrugged. “I haven’t seen you fall on your face yet. I bet you could show a girl a nice time on the dance floor.”

Cat King was flirting with him. Flirting. Another area he was pathetically rusty in.

“I read. I learn to make meals that Sara finds on Pinterest. And I work out.” And when he said it like that, he couldn’t have sounded more boring if he were a coma patient.

“Noah, you have to have some fun. Otherwise you’re just a tax-paying robot.” She stopped in front of the cookie section and groaned. “I want all these.”

“You can’t get them all.”

She pointed a finger in his face. “See? That right there is Mr. Responsibility. I’m not actually going to buy all of them, but you telling me I can’t have them makes that option even more attractive.”

“You’re like a teenage rebel. No one needs thirty-six different kinds of cookies.”

Defiantly, Cat dropped four packs into the cart.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“Look, I’m just trying to help you out here. You use that attitude and logic on Sara when she’s a teenager, and you’re going to push her into the arms of an irresistible bad boy who’s one in-school suspension away from getting kicked out.”

“Why do you insist on giving me parenting advice? You have zero children.”

“You’re missing out on the best part of being a parent.” Cat threw two packs of Oreos into the cart.

“What’s the best part of parenting?” Noah asked wearily.

Cat knocked a bag of chewy chocolate chip cookies into the cart. “Watching them turn into their own people.”

She sounded like his ex-wife.

“What do you suggest I do?” he asked, half afraid of the answer.

“Maybe take a step back on the ‘do this, do that stuff’ and see what she decides on her own. Maybe lighten up a little.”

“You say lighten up now, but wait until you’re in charge of making sure another human being not only stays alive but turns out to be a good person,” he argued.

“Get in the cart, Noah.”

He blinked. “I beg your pardon.”

Cat nudged the cart into him. “Get in the cart.”

“In the cart?”