Page 90 of The Strawberry Patch Pancake House

And now here they were, Friday, and they were at the diner for lunch since Olive had a half day of school and she wanted to see her dad. And Iris was more than a little afraid of what would happen when Archer stepped out of the kitchen. Would she run? Would she propose marriage? Would she stand on this table and proclaim her new and entirely unexpected love for him?

‘Iris! Earth to Iris.’ Bex waved a hand in front of her face, snapping her out of her slow descent into madness.

‘Sorry, what?’

‘Olive was talking to you.’

Olive squirmed next to her in the booth.

‘Sorry, kid. I guess I fell asleep with my eyes open.’

Olive scrunched her nose like she didn’t believe that excuse for a minute. Iris was just glad the little lie detector couldn’t tell she was having wildly inappropriate thoughts about her dad.

‘What were you saying?’

Olive sighed the long-suffering sigh of a five-year-old surrounded by incompetent grown-ups.

‘I said, when are we going to start our garden?’

‘Soon.’ Iris reached over and opened the little pack of crayons that the kid’s menu came with.

Olive grabbed them and started coloring, but Iris saw that her frown had deepened. She had learned that ‘soon’ and ‘maybe’ were Olive’s least favorite words. She did not appreciate stalling.

‘We were waiting for the threat of frost to pass! But we’ll plant it soon. I promise, okay?’

Olive nodded as she colored. ‘And when are you going to teach me to dive?’

‘You need to finish learning to swim first.’ Olive’s swimming lessons had quickly become Iris’s favorite part of the week. After just a few lessons, Olive had gone from thrashing around rather ineffectually in the water, to being able to do a front and back float and a pretty solid doggie paddle. Iris had been surprised by the swell of pride she felt when Olive’s little tummy rose above the water, her head back, limbs like a starfish, and she’d done it. She’d floated! Even now, Iris felt a bubble of excitement inside her when she thought about it.

But Olive wasn’t satisfied with a promise to garden and dive. She wanted more.

‘Can we watch Narnia tonight?’ she asked.

‘Maybe.’

‘Iriiiiis…’ she dragged out the last half of Iris’s name on a long whine.

Bex cringed and Iris just shook her head. ‘What’s with all the demands today?’ She brushed the hair from Olive’s face.

Olive laid her head on the table, her cheek sticking to the children’s menu she’d scribbled all over. ‘I want to do all the things.’

‘I know. We have plenty of time, babe,’ she said. But was that true? It was already May. If she stuck to her original plan, she’d be handing in her notice by June. Had Olive somehow sensed that she’d been planning to cut out early? Did she know that Iris was bound to disappoint her?

‘But what if we don’t.’

‘We do.’ A month and a half was a long time. Even if she did leave at the end of June, they would still have plenty of time to do everything Olive wanted. Unless she kept adding to the list. Or unless Iris decided to stop being a coward and acted on her newfound feelings.

Olive scowled.

Bex mouthed ‘Yikes’ from across the table. Yikes was right. This kid had a lot of plans and Iris had made a lot of promises, and the thing was, she actually wanted to keep them. She wanted to plant a garden with Olive and teach her to dive and watch Narnia and do all the millions of other things they’d talked about. And that only complicated her feelings even more.

But at that moment, Archer entered the dining room from the kitchen, carrying a tray heaped with food. As soon as his eyes found hers, his face split into a smile. Iris couldn’t help but return it, her insides immediately turning to goo.

‘Oh. My. God,’ Bex hissed. Iris kicked her under the table. Now was not the time to catch her cousin up on just how close she and her employer had become, but apparently, Iris wasn’t imagining the way Archer was looking at her. They were obvious as hell.

‘Look, there’s your dad.’ Iris nudged Olive with her elbow and Olive raised her head.

‘Yay!’ Olive waved to Archer, as though he wouldn’t find them at their usual table. ‘Dad! Over here!’