Page 20 of Have a Bear-y Little Christmas

“I know I don’t have to, I want to.” I tried to soften my eyes as best I could. “Really, I mean it. He’s a good kid, and if you think he’d want a side, I’d like to get him one. It’s really the least I could do. Addy isn’t normally like that. I guess since her mother died, she developed a bit of a phobia of blood.”

Ah shit, had I said that out loud? I could tell from Jeannie’s scent and the way her eyebrows went up that she was surprised by how casually I’d dropped that little factoid. Honestly, I was too. I liked to think that I had come to terms with my grief as much as one could in eighteen months, but I hadn’t thought I would blurt out that I was a widower.

“It wasn’t violent or anything like that,” I said quickly. “We spent a lot of time in hospitals. I guess she developed an aversion to it, and I didn’t notice since she hasn’t injured herself in a long time.”

“I’m sorry that happened. It sounds very stressful.” Jeannie’s eyes flicked to the cashier, who was staring at us. Oh right, she’d probably heard everything, too.

That was awkward.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Jeannie said. If I had to bet, I was sure her cheeks were flushed under all her winter protection.

“That’s all right. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” Jeez, where did I go from here? I had turned what was a possible new friendship into a tragedy. “So, what side?”

“Pardon?”

“Uh, the side. What side would your son like?”

Oh, yeah, real smooth. Like the very ice I’d almost broken my neck on and my daughter had hurt herself on.

“Max?” She blinked. “Right, uhm, do they have tater tots? He gets full fast, but he somehow always has room for tater tots.”

“Do you have tater tots?” I asked the cashier, who looked like she was dissociating to a place where she didn’t have two awkward adults taking forever to put in their order.

“Yes, we do. Cajun, ranch, or no seasoning?”

“No seasoning, please,” Jeannie said quickly.

“Perfect. And for you?” I asked, and there was that wide-eyed stare again. I felt bad for putting her through a bit of a ringer, butI was only trying to treat her and her son. Maybe I should’ve just thanked them and let them go on their way.

Ugh. I couldn’t seem to stop messing up.

“For me?”

“Yeah. Do you think I’m gonna let you watch us while we stuff our faces?”

“Let me?” she echoed, but instead of sounding shocked, the corner of her eyes scrunched, her face covering moving in a way that let me know she was smiling again.

“Poor choice of words,” I said, unable to stop myself from grinning back. “But please, we’re holding up the line. So, if you’re okay with it, I’d like to get you something.”

“All right, if youinsist.I’ll have a cheeseburger with mayo and lettuce.”

“No ketchup or barbecue?”

She shook her head. “Nightshade sensitivity, I’m afraid. Gives me the worst heartburn and burns in other places on the way out.”

“Noted.”

I turned to relay the order to the cashier, but she was already punching on the buttons before she gave me the flattest smile I had ever seen.

“Will that be all today?”

I winced and pulled a ten dollar bill out of my wallet to preemptively place in her tip jar. The girl relaxed a bit. “Actually, we’d all like drinks.”

I didn’t let myself get distracted this time and rattled off the rest of our order quickly. We moved to the next counter to wait for our food.

It took a while, but I wasn’t in a hurry. The kids all had their shoes on and their ice skates over their shoulders. They walked over to us in a little gaggle, and I realized just how small Max was. He was shorter than Eva without his skates, and it lookedlike he weighed less too. And yet he communicated like he was Addy’s age.

Then again, I’d been told that girls often hit their growth spurts before boys, so maybe that was normal? Since I used to be a young boy, I would have thought I’d remember, but I really didn’t. Time was funny that way, I supposed. I did know that I was taller than Zara when I met her.