Page 75 of Love Me Boldly

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“All right.What are we doing today?” I squirted dishwasher detergent into the machine, closed the door, and pressed the start button.

Jonah was at the kitchen table, done eating, reading a comic book about a famous baseball player Paul had bought him. I’d hated reading when I was little, numbers and facts were more my thing, along with running outside and biking, but Jonah loved to read. He soaked up every age-appropriate book I gave him, and his teacher had started recommending books for him much higher than his grade level. For now, we were sticking with books about sports or fictional stories based on real-life players. He gravitated toward baseball and hockey players, though the hockey ones were harder to find.

I tossed and turned all night long tryingnotto think of Graham and his purpose for being here. Maybe he’d run off after I jumped out of the booth yesterday and told him to go home. That there wasn’t anything for him there.

Unlikely. Graham giving up on something wasn’t a strength he possessed.

“Park!” Jonah slapped his book closed and jumped off the kitchen chair. It scraped along the tiled floor, but his feet thundering to the front door made the screeching sound inconsequential.

I had the morning and afternoon off from the diner, but I would go in before the dinner rush and stay until we closed. Saturdays were our busiest days, and I couldn’t even stay hidden back in the office working on payroll and scheduling and ordering. It was also the day I insisted Caroline take off, so while our morning workers could handle breakfast and lunch without me, one of us had to be there for dinner and beyond.

ThankGodfor Emma and Annie. They were lifesavers. Heading into their junior year of high school, they begged for as many hours as possible to save up for college tuition, and Caroline and I quickly complied. Fortunately, the summer weather had been perfect for tourists, and we’d had a steady stream of locals with a slight uptick in visitors. I attributed that to my recent foray into strengthening our social media presence and working with the city to get our name out there more with marketing fliers and catalogs that got sent out all over the state.

The old adage was true: you had to spend money to make money, but I’d done most of it with very little upfront cost.

I was seeing it on the back end, though, for certain.

All things that I could think of at work, and not while I was spending the beginning of my day with Jonah.

“Neighborhood park or city park?” I asked and slipped into my knockoff Birkenstock sandals.

“City! ’Cause then we can get ice cream after and run through the splash pad.”

“Sounds like a perfect plan. Maybe we can invite Ella and June?”

Ella and June were Cole and Trina’s daughters. Ella was his age, although in a different classroom at school, and June was a year behind. They were all young enough that it didn’t matter to Jonah that most of his friends were girls.

“Yes!” He was tugging on his tennis shoes at the door to the garage, and his little brows puckered. “Does Mr. Robbie have kids at his house?”

Robbie and Ashley were friends with Cole and Trina, so I also knew them well. They were also foster parents, so while they had a few long-term placement children in their home, they occasionally had short-term ones.

“I haven’t heard,” I told him. “And Carlie and Addison are probably too old or busy.”

At twelve and fourteen, they’d been with Robbie and Sarah the longest. Sarah desperately wanted to adopt them, but their mom kept making the minimal effort with long stretches of absences in between, so the courts kept hesitating to allow the adoption to go through. Due to my own issues with my parents, especially my mom, I’d been able to relate to the girls when I first met them.

“Maybe they can watch me later.”

“We’ll see. I don’t have any plans tonight.” Babysitters were an expense my budget didn’t always allow for.

“Fine.” He slapped down the Velcro on his last shoe and jumped to his feet. “Last one to the truck is a rotten egg!”

The door slammed shut behind him right before the quiet hum of our garage door opening kicked on.

I pressed the lock button on my key fob and hoped it worked before I followed him outside. I had nothing wrong with letting Jonah win occasionally, but I’d always win this game no matter how many times he tried to win by closing the door in my face.

“Hey!” he shouted at me, laughing while he tugged on the door handle. “Unfair!”

I ruffled his hair as I scooted by him. “So was closing the door. Second try. You ready?”

I stood at my side of the Pilot, key fob in the air, other hand raised in the air. “Hands up, kiddo, lemme see ’em.” Once he did, I grinned at him. “Last one to buckle is the rotten egg, got it?”

He nodded seriously. “Yup.”

I hit the unlock button, and we both dove to the handle and into our seats. My purse got caught in the door, losing precious nanoseconds, and Jonah’s click and then squeal erupted through the back seat. “I win! You stink, Mommy!”

“Yeah, yeah.” I laughed. “I stink.”

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