Page 19 of Just Come Over

“We could make a neck— neck—”

“An exception.”

“A neck-seption. For cookies. My mommy puts cookies in my lunch, because it’s dessert.”

“No. No more exceptions. We’ll get a cookie at the lounge.Onecookie. Onesmallcookie.” And zero giant pretzels.

When they were finally in the SAS lounge, which wasn’t much more than some wi-fi that he needed, some food and beverages in which he wouldn’t be indulging, and less noise than the gate area, he found them seats at a table, hauled out his laptop and notebook, and told her, “Good news. Security took so long, it is now only two hours until our flight is called.”

“Oh. Are we going to wait here?”

“Yeh. It’s an airline lounge. More comfortable than outside, eh. You can watch the planes and check out how we’re going to fly.”

She was shifting in her seat like it wasn’t comfortable at all. “Something wrong?” he asked.

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

He should have foreseen that. She’d gone at the hotel, but that had been simple. “Uh...” he said. “Fine.” It would be down a corridor. Some corridor. He couldn’t leave her to find it by herself. He closed his laptop, shoved it and his notebook into his backpack again, and went with her. “I’ll wait for you here,” he said when they were outside the door. “Give me Moana and your backpack. I’ll hold them for you.”

Was that OK? It had better be OK. What else would he do?

Five minutes later, with a stop for, yes, a cookie on the way back, and he was pulling out his backpack again. He needed to catch up with Finn about team selection for Saturday’s match before nightfall in New Zealand, and time was running short.

He was typing when he felt the pull of the tractor beam. Which was, of course, Casey’s eyes on him. He raised his own. “What?”

“What do I do?” she asked.

“Uh... We wait. Two hours, like I said, then we can board the plane. There’ll be a TV on there.” That gave him an idea. “You can watch now, if you like.”

She craned around and looked at the set on one wall. “It’s not a show for kids.”

He looked himself. News. Something was blowing up. “Play with your doll, then,” he suggested.

She stared at him like he was stupid. He was getting used to that, too. “I can’t justplaywith her. I can’t even change her clothes, and I don’t have my room or my special rug or my bunnies or anything, so there’s no magic.”

“Right.” He closed his laptop again. Sacrifices had to be made. “Do you have a better idea?”

“You could be the monster,” she said, “and I could be Moana.”

Not happening. He’d be facing the police again for sure. He’d also become aware of the occasional filthy look from another passenger. What did they think people with kids should do, then? Disappear? “We don’t have, uh, room,” he said. “For me to be the monster. I require space. What else?”

“I could do a coloring book.”

“Good. Do that.”

“Except I don’t have one. Or I could play with a L.O.L. Surprise House. It has eighty-five surprises.” She sighed in a heartfelt way.

“Let me guess. You don’t have that, either.”

“No. I just have Moana. But you won’t be the monster.”

“Fine. Let’s go find you something to do.” He stashed his laptop again and stood up, and she jumped up and put her hand into his.

Three stops and forty minutes later, they still didn’t have a coloring book. They had, however, on the advice of the motherly lady at the last bookstore, ended up at the museum shop where they’d seen the dinosaur models.

It was a prehistoric-animal sticker set, in the end, not a coloring book. “I wantthisone,” Casey said, picking it up and hugging it to her. “Because I can make worlds. Look. There’s a lake and a forest andeverything.And you can move the animals around. This is the best sticker setever.”

“Good,” he said. “Fine.” Educational, quiet, and non-messy. Good to go.