Page 68 of Protecting What's Mine

“Just because you’re not looking doesn’t mean you can’t find something,” Christa said cheerfully.

“It’s true,” Jillian said, poking her head into the room. “I wasn’t looking for Vijay when I stumbled into that karaoke bar ten years ago, and look at us now. Three boys, an aquarium full of goldfish, and no time to ourselves.”

That did not sound like the life for Mack. That sounded like a dozen disasters waiting to happen every day.

“Not that you’d need to go that route with Linc,” Christa said, working her thumbs between Mack’s shoulder blades.

“Gah,” Mack whimpered.

“He’s the greatest guy. You can trust us. We’ve known him since he was born,” Jillian said knowledgeably. “I think you two would be very happy together.”

“I don’t think one kiss means happily ever after,” Mack gritted out.

“Oooooh! A kiss! Tell us more,” Christa squealed.

The boys passive-aggressively turned up the TV volume.

“Turn it down,” Jillian yelled. “I wanna hear about the kiss!”

Mack politely declined to share any sordid details. But she did begin to wonder why it had been only one kiss. He hadn’t kissed her this morning before he abandoned his dog with her.

“It was worth a shot,” Christa said, working her way through all the kinks in Mack’s back.

After her adjustments and a lunch of chicken corn soup and half a turkey sandwich prepared by Jillian, Mack felt almost human again. Or at least human enough to give the sniffly Mikey a quick exam.

“He’s old enough that you could look into allergy shots,” she told Jillian.

“Shots?” Mikey’s bloodshot brown eyes widened.

“Are you afraid of needles?” Mack asked him.

He shrugged a bony shoulder, the picture of eight-year-old nonchalance. “They’re no big deal.”

“Well, if they did bother you,” she continued, “I could tell you a trick so it’s not so scary.”

“What kind of trick?”

She reached over and pinched him lightly on the arm. “Feel that?”

“Ow. Yeah.”

“Okay. This time take a deep breath.”

He inhaled skeptically.

“Good. Now hold it for a second. And then blow it out really hard.”

On the kid’s exuberant exhale, she pinched him again.

“Hey! That didn’t hurt as much,” he said.

“That’s the trick. A really big breath out, and your body is focusing more on the breath than the teeny tiny poke.”

“Pinch me next, Dr. Mack,” Griffin insisted. She felt pretty good about it.

HALF AN HOUR LATER,a grateful Mack with a folded load of laundry, sparkling kitchen, and pee-breaked Sunshine waved Linc’s sisters off. She hadn’t even made it back to the couch when there was another knock at the door.

Aldo and Gloria grinned at her from the front steps.