Page 16

Chapter sixteen

Emmett Foster

“Ease up on whatever game you’re playing, Kingsley,” I say as we walk to a pastry shop Willow said she wanted to go to after lunch. Hazel, June, and Willow are a few steps ahead of us, holding hands and giggling as they lead the way.

“There’s no game except the one you have tonight, E.T.,” Jason replies with a grin.

“I’m serious. You can say nonsense to me, but not to her.”

I keep my eyes on June, refusing to look over at Jason again. He spent all of lunch dropping stupid hints and asking Hazel leading questions. She laughed it off, but it had to have made her uncomfortable. If he weren’t my friend, I would have hit him on the back of the head. I might do it anyway.

“Why not?”

My jaw tenses. I should have seen the question coming. Unfortunately, his ridiculous question about whether she watches me practicing–and her lack of answer–has muddled my brain. Why would she respond that way? What would have happened if no one had interrupted? And more importantly… why do I care?

“She works for me. I don’t want her to feel uncomfortable because I have meddling friends.”

“For an uncomfortable person she was laughing a lot.”

I glare at him. “You’re pushing it.”

“I’m pushing your buttons, sure.” He chuckles. “But I always do that, and you never seem to mind.”

Hazel glances back at us. She smiles at me, but it fades to a frown. Likely due to the Jason-induced scowl on my face.

“You okay?” she mouths.

I give her a stiff nod and try to soften my features so she doesn’t worry. This seems to reassure her, and I catch a flash of her smile returning as she turns back around.

Jason snorts. “You’re worse than Miles was about Ellie. If you were on a map, you’d be smack-dab in the middle of a river in Egypt.”

“I thought I made it clear to everyone in our group that talking about any kind of relationship was off-limits.”

“So this falls under the category of a relationship to you? Interesting.”

How have I gone from one-word responses to saying too much? Now he’s never going to leave this alone.

Up ahead, two guys approach Willow, Hazel, and June. They’re each wearing smarmy grins that make my skin crawl. I shouldn’t have fallen back with Jason. If I had been by Hazel’s side, they wouldn’t have come within a ten-foot radius.

“What are you pretty girls doing out all alone?” One of the guys loudly asks.

Without a word, Jason and I increase our stride to catch up to the girls and position ourselves in front of them.

“No,” I say simply, meeting the larger one’s gaze. I cross my arms. In my peripheral, I see Jason do the same.

They both back up, the one across from Jason lifting his hands in surrender.

“Our bad,” the shorter one says.

The taller one’s eyes linger a little too long, but before I’m tempted to remedy that, he turns around and stalks off.

I think I hear Willow say hot in a low voice, and when I turn around, I catch Hazel nodding with rose-stained cheeks.

“Thanks for stepping in,” Hazel says when she notices me watching her. “I had a bad feeling about them.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t up here to deter them,” I reply.

She shrugs. “I’ve dealt with my fair share of creeps in Nashville. Stands to reason I’d have to deal with them in New York.”

Willow and Jason laugh, but my stomach turns as I think about Hazel alone on the streets with no one to protect her.

“Daddy, those guys smelled weird,” June says, wrinkling her nose.

Hazel laughs and glances up at me. “I think they smoked cigarettes.”

“Say no to drugs!” June shouts at an entirely too loud decibel. A few passersby give us odd looks.

“Where did you learn that?” I ask June.

“These people came by our school and taught us about drugs and strangers,” June answers.

I run a hand over my beard. “I didn’t know they did that in kindergarten, but okay.”

“It was for the whole school. There were a billion trillion people there, and the boys smelled very sweaty from recess,” she says, eliciting more laughs from my friends.

“Thank you for sharing,” Hazel says through her laughter. “How about we go get a cookie now?”

“Cookie! I want chocolate chip.”

I breathe easier knowing they’re safe and the conversation has shifted away from drugs. I don’t think I have the mental capacity to deal with that right now.

We continue our walk, and this time, I stand next to Hazel while Jason bookends the group next to Willow. June skips happily in the middle, making up a song about cookies.

“I think this is the place,” Willow says as we come across a baby blue storefront. There’s a scalloped awning over top and a sign above that reads The Little Lovely Café in cursive script. I hold the door open as everyone walks inside.

The scent of sugar and freshly brewed coffee wraps around us. There are lit glass cases filled with pastries, and a woman with dark brown skin and blue braids greets us with a smile.

“Welcome in, let me know if you have any questions.”

Everyone except June murmurs a form of acknowledgment. My daughter is too busy sticking her tiny nose to the glass to say anything. I take her by the shoulders and gently pull her back.

“Don’t lean on the glass, okay?” I say and she nods.

“The cookies are the biggest I’ve ever seen,” she says in awestruck wonder.

Her tone isn’t without cause though. The cookies are huge, and they’d probably hide June’s entire face if she held one up.

“You might want some caffeine to be able to handle the sugar rush that’s about to occur,” Willow says with a laugh.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Hazel says.

“Order whatever you like,” I tell Hazel.

“Are you sure?” she asks. “I know it wasn’t planned for me to come along today.”

“I invited you. I’m not going to have you pay.”

She places a hand on my arm, catching me off guard. “Thank you, and thank you for inviting me and for protecting us from those men–” Moisture gathers in her green eyes like dew on spring grass. “Goodness, I’m a sap today. You must think I’m ridiculous.” She lets out a laugh and swipes beneath her eyes.

“I don’t think that.”

Her gaze catches mine again. I read the question in her eyes, but I don’t have a response for her. Not one that wouldn’t put both June and me in danger of getting hurt. So I break our moment with reality. “We should probably order and get going. I don’t want to be late to the stadium.” She nods, then steps up to the counter and orders a chocolate chip cookie for June, one for herself, and then a strawberry matcha latté. I decline to get anything so that there’s nothing heavy on my stomach before the game tonight. In the end, Jason pays for everyone, so my conversation with Hazel didn’t matter after all. At least, that’s what I’m going to tell myself.

Jason pauses in the doorway as I hold it for everyone to exit. “I’ll leave things alone,” he says in a low voice so the others can’t hear. “But just let me say one more thing: don’t let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.”

I can’t help the chuckle that escapes me at his cheesy quote. He saunters off to throw his arm around his wife. She shoves him away as he tries to steal a bite of her croissant. In spite of my aversion to marriage, it looks good on him. He’s happier than I’ve ever seen him, and he’s always been an upbeat guy. Sure, it’s made him extra annoying, but…I guess it’s all right if he’s happy.

I catch up to the group as Hazel helps June wrap the bottom half of her cookie in a napkin while balancing the bag holding hers and her odd-looking green drink.

“Here, let me help.” I grab Hazel’s drink from her. Our hands brush. It’s the faintest touch, but it feels like much more after our conversation in the café.

Hazel gets June situated with half a chocolate chip cookie, then stands up straight again.

“Thanks,” she says with a laugh, holding up her chocolate-covered hands. “I think she might need a bath before the game. Me too, maybe.”

A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. “There’s no use in that. She’s probably going to con you into some other messy food while at the game.”

Hazel’s eyes scrunch up with her grin. “You say this like she wouldn’t be able to get you to do the same.”

“I think I raised a princess.”

“You did build her a castle.”

I let out a short laugh. “I guess I did.”

“She’s a lucky girl to have a dad like you,” Hazel says quietly. I wonder if she’s thinking of her own dad and his apparent lack of attentiveness.

I shrug off her undeserved praise. “I don’t know about that, but I do my best to take care of her.”

“You do more than you think.”

I hand her drink back to her, our fingers brushing yet again. A little bit of chocolate marks my skin. The idea of licking it off after it’s been on Hazel’s skin creates a warm pool in my abdomen.

“This is the best day ever,” June shouts around a bite of cookie, thankfully derailing my train of thought.

“You got that right, sweet pea,” Hazel says, bending down to kiss the crown of June’s head.

The sight only makes all the warm feelings rising up inside me worse. I haven’t felt this much in years. I don’t know what to do with all of it.

Jason smirks at me. I’m not sure if I can sit in that river he was talking about for much longer. This is getting difficult to ignore.