It was Hazel, and it looked like she was in Vickie’s backyard. The lake was bright blue behind her. She was dressed in a costume of some sort, in a green leotard and a tall striped hat. Was it anime? A cartoon? Some TikTok trend? She’d never been able to keep up with them all. She clicked the Play button, and Hazel was dancing to some song with a catchy, funny beat to it. And then Mike appeared behind Hazel, crossing over in the opposite direction as her, but doing the same skipping steps. And he was also wearing a giant green top hat, although he’d been spared the leotard—instead he wore green sweatpants and a green T-shirt.

Zoey’s hand went over her mouth. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her daughter and her—she glanced up at his blushing face—her boyfriend were doing a dance challenge together. And it was hysterically funny.

“What...what am I watching?” she asked, to no one in particular. She couldn’t stop laughing at the silliness of it. Mike moved behind her, sliding his arms around her waist. She glanced up to find Hazel watching them. Her daughter was smiling. Zoey relaxed back against Mike’s solid chest, hope and joy dancing circles around her heart.

“Read the caption,” he said, his breath moving the hair by her ear. His chin rested on her shoulder.

She’d been so busy laughing at her two beloved clowns dancing that she’d missed the small scrolling caption, similar to the one on that first embarrassing video Hazel had done. She held the phone closer and read it out loud.

When your mom’s attorney boytoy. Turns out to be what the olds call cool. I’m dead that he did this! OG all the way.

It was followed by a string of laughing crying emojis. She looked at Hazel, who now was laughing with everyone else.

“So,” Zoey wiped her eyes. “This is teenspeak for ‘my mom’s boyfriend is now acceptable to me because he allowed me to humiliate him in a dance challenge’?”

Hazel rolled her eyes. “He’d have been acceptable before that if you’d told me about him.” Zoey winced, knowing she’d screwed up. But then Hazel looked at Mike and broke out in another torrent of giggles. “But humiliating him was pretty fun.”

Mike reached around Zoey in a playful attempt to catch Hazel, who jumped back with a squeal of laughter. He looked at Zoey. “Your daughter is a menace.” He kissed Zoey’s cheek. “Just like her mom. Here, I’ve been saving this one up for today. What did the sculptor say to his girlfriend?”

Vickie and Maura had finally made it through the crowd around them. Vickie heard Mike’s riddle and sighed to Maura. “Oh, no, here we go with the jokes...”