Page 15 of Love By the Slice

Greg said, “Disarmed?”

Shelly replied, “Working single-handedly?”

Greg said, “Yes. Except no. The reason to lie is money. The question is who’s lying, or is it both of them?”

Shelly said, “Either way, it’s Rowan who suffers when there’s no food or laundry detergent. The only one I care about in this equation is the kid.”

Greg said, “Of course.”

At least Greg wasn’t hand-wringing about whether giving a kid some dinner might mean someoneelseate dinner who didn’t 100% deserve free food. That attitude had kept her and Ezra hungry too many times. So what if you give someone foodbenefits and they weren’t truly at the end of their rope? They still needed to eat. Shelly figured the benefits you got were so paltry, why not widen the net as far as you could so as to catch as many people who needed the help?

If you had a hundred life preservers on your rescue boat, who cared if one of the people could have swum to the boat just fine on their own? Get them out of the water.

Ezra had worked his way out of the life he’d been born into. Shelly was on her way to doing the same. Just because they’d done it on their own, though, didn’t mean Rowan needed to wait six years and then do it, too.

Greg said, “There are people who get paid to figure out who needs help and who doesn’t.” He shrugged as he kept prepping toppings. “I’m just alive to pay taxes so they can do it.”

Shelly snorted. “Seems that way sometimes.”

With all the sodas restocked, she returned the remaining cans to the stock room.

By the time she returned to the kitchen again, orders had come in, and Greg was filling them. With a sigh, she found her jacket and car keys.

She said, “I’m keeping my ear to the ground. If there’s any other way we can help, I want to.”

Greg said, “You’ve done so much.”

Shelly said, “I don’t trust that’s enough. I want to do more.”

Greg said, “And…? How can we help?”

That was always the question, not just how to help but how to help without making things worse. Sometimes if you reached out, the parent got so frustrated that they took it out on the kid. But even so…even so…

She sighed. “What else is there?”

Greg said, “Do you want to—” and then stopped.

Her attention snapped to him. “Want to…what?”

When she looked at him, he gave a mischievous smile. “Maybe go out somewhere?”

She said, “Go out somewhere…and…do what?”

He shrugged. “Anything you want. A movie. Dinner. A hike.” His suggestion of a winter hike confirmed for Shelly that Greg was spitballing. He hadn’t thought this through at all. “You’re always so tense. So if we went out, maybe you’d relax a bit.”

She snickered. “We could sneak out to one of the other pizzerias and scope out their weak points?”

“I know all their weak points. Their delivery driver isn’t amazing, and their cooks aren’t brilliant.”

Shelly pointed at Greg. “Or humble?”

“Not in the slightest!” He awarded her a very cute smile. “And with that settled, let’s do something fun.”

She said, “Pick a place.”

He said, “Tell me what you want, and we’ll do it.”

Shelly’s mind raced through five hundred possibilities. It would have to be a day they were both off. And a time she didn’t have classes. And when the weather wasn’t a mess. And not expensive. And not outside.

---