It’s almost four in the afternoon, which means Hannah should be home by now. She’d apologetically and hurriedly asked if Caroline could keep an eye on Abbie earlier this morning – not a common occurrence for a Sunday – and had been in such a rush, Caroline hadn’t gotten much of an explanation when she’d picked Abbie up.

“We got so much. What do you think I should wear on my first day?” Abbie asks, tossing a look over her shoulder at Caroline as they make their way down the hall.

“I’m not sure, but going into fifth grade is a pretty big deal. How about you try on your favorites for your mom and she can help choose?”

“Okay!” Abbie exuberantly agrees just before she gets to the apartment door and she pauses to look over her shoulder, sending Caroline an imploring look. “And you’ll stay, too?”

Caroline hesitates for a second. Not because she doesn’t want to stay, but one of her steps to getting over these feelings has been to spend less time in Hannah and Abbie’s apartment. It, after all, was the scene of the crime.

“For a little bit.” She agrees because she can’t say no to Abbie’s pleading blue eyes. Especially when she wonders if Abbie has noticed she’s been trying to spend a little less time hanging around their apartment.

Abbie grins as she takes her handful of bags and runs into the apartment ahead of Caroline, shouting her greeting to Hannah with a proclamation of, “We went back to school shopping!”

Caroline pauses for only a moment to take a deep breath before she follows – totally normal.

Hannah steps out from the kitchen as Caroline makes her way down the hall, and the sight of her stops Caroline dead in her tracks. Because she’s in tailored slacks and a fitted button up, her hair pinned up, and –

And Caroline forces herself to ignore the flutter in her stomach. Ignore, ignore, ignore, and eventually it will stop happening. It’s part of her get-over-Hannah strategy.

The fact that Hannah’s expression is not her usual affectionate smile, as she crosses her arms, also somewhat helps extinguish the feeling. “You took her back to school shopping?”

Caroline bites her lip before offering a sheepish smile. “Well, yes? I know you meant to do it today, but you were…” She deliberately doesn’t drop her gaze to look Hannah up and down as much as it would help her case. “Busy.”

She doesn’t think it’s a big deal, but she can tell by the look in Hannah’s eyes that she has to be missing something.