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“No. But it’s not nice to label people.”
He sighed, sounding so much older than his seven years. “I know. But she looked cranky!”
She looked pissed off. Threatened.I rolled my eyes at the irony.
Pull your claws back in, cranky Ann. No threat from the woman who’s just an employee, standing in as a babysitter.
“Well, we’re not cranky. Let’s go have some fun.” I hopped in my step, then did a silly sidestep around a garbage can. Hearing Jason laughing and feeling him hold on tight chased away the irritation of Ann’s attitude toward me. This little boy could always make me feel lighter. He had the power to turn all my frowns upside down, and that was just what we did at the arcade.
Over pizza and ice cream, we goofed off and played our favorite games. He beat me at skee ball, only because I wanted him to win half of the games we played. Jason was good company, and by the end, as we checked our ticket count on our cards, I realized how different it felt without Henry here. He always teased us about having a faulty count, even though a computer did the tallying. Jason must have felt his absence too and missed his silly joke because he looked at me with a frown. “Mia? How come you never go on dates? Like Daddy is with Cranky Ann?”
I laughed, trying not to. “We can’t call her that,” I reminded him.
“You started it.”
“I think you did.”
“We both did.” Setting his hands on his hips, he shrugged. “We gotta face the facts. She looked cranky.”
I mussed up his hair. “Okay, but that’s not nice to say.”
“All right. All right. But why don’tcha?”
“Go on dates?” I asked as the arcade worker, Penni, handed back our cards.
“Not bad, little man.” Penni winked at Jason. “Better luck next week, Mia.”
I shrugged. I hadn’t played my best, too distracted with the same thing that was on Jason’s mind—Henry being out with Ann.
“What about Henry?” she asked.
“He’s on a date,” Jason piped up.
Penni arched a brow, looking at me. “Oh. I thought…” She shook her head, familiar with us coming every week but clearly reading the situation incorrectly if she assumed Henry was “with” me.
Jason and I left, but on the walk to his home, he asked again. “How come you don’t go on dates? Grandpa worries that you’ll never find someone to ‘settle down’ with.” He frowned. “What does it mean to settle down? Like a cat curling up in a circle to lie down in a bed?”
I smiled. “Sort of. It’s complicated.”
“I can’t wait for you to get a cat! Daddy’s never going to let me have a dog.”
The current hope we had was that as soon as I moved into a different building that allowed pets, I’d finally get a cat like I’ve always wanted. Jason already put first dibs on visiting rights.
“Is you not going on dates complicated?” he asked, switching from animals to dates. He was prone to jumping around in conversations, like most kids were, I imagined.
Shrugging, I counted on another distraction to avoid answering. I lifted him into my arms and he crawled around to get another piggyback. “What isn’t complicated?” I didn’t want to answer a child’s question with a question, but I wasn’t sure how to tell this boy that I didn’t date because I wished I could date his daddy, my boss.
“But Grandpa worries you’ll be alone forever.”
Talk about a vote of confidence—not.Still, I was amused. Eddie was like the dad I never had, but I laughed off his concern.
“Forever is a long time,” I reminded Jason.
“I don’t want you to be alone.”
I laughed, looking up at him. “I’m not. How can I be when I’ve got you?” Then I skipped and hurried, letting his laughter and squeals of excitement erase the depressing thoughts that I might end up alone after all.
Because if I had my heart set on my boss, on Henry, I was in for a long duration of not getting what I wanted.