Page 5 of Waiting For A Girl Like You
Smug like every other Fairweather out there, Livy stuck her chin in the air. “Set.”
“Whoever makes it to the graveyard first wins,” Samuel rushed out.
“The graveyard?” Livy scoffed, getting in position to sprint. “Afraid you can’t make it as far as the mill?”
Samuel’s eyes went wide directly before they narrowed on Livy. “Oh, you’re on!”
“Go,” Evie shouted, hoping to catch Samuel off guard.
Livy shot off toward the forest with Samuel right on her heels. The pair quickly disappeared beyond the trees, and Evie released a sinister giggle.
“What’s so funny?” Devon asked, wrangling Selah into helping him clean up.
Evie shrugged and took Toby by the hand. “Livy will keep him busy while I eat all the blue popsicles.”
Shoulders slumped, Laura Jean watched as Evie led Toby inside. “Is my daughter evil?”
“No more than Samuel is,” Devon assured her. “They’re a match made in… well, you know.”
Jamison let out a shrieking giggle over some squirrels, fisting Laura Jean’s shirt to bounce with excitement.
“What do you see, my baby?” Laura Jean pointed to the branches where the squirrels darted in a frenzied chase. “Do you see the squirrels?”
“Da! Da! Da!” Jamison whooped, arms outstretched, her chubby fingers opening and closing like she could catch them.
“That’s not our dad, Jamison,” Selah said as he dumped the leftover experiment water onto the grass. “He’s not coming till tomorrow.”
Laura Jean paused, her smile faltering.
“Da! Da! Da!” Jamison kept chanting and squealing the sound as if it meant something more.
Concerned by the distant look in Laura Jean’s eyes, Devon stepped in front of her. “You okay?”
Laura Jean’s small hand landed on his chest as if to steady herself. “Ben’s here.”
“Uh?” They were in the side yard and could partially see the front parking spots. Devon leaned around her to look, but Ben’s car wasn’t there. “Ben isn’t her—”
A puff of dust lifted off the drive, and the sound of an engine could be heard. Seconds later, Ben’s Rover appeared, sunlight glinting off the windshield like a signal flare.
“Well, alrighty then,” Devon mumbled as Laura Jean took off with Jamison on her hip to greet Ben. “Weird.”
There was no other word or explanation for that relationship. He would admit that Laura Jean was intuitive, but sometimes the bond between her and Ben could only be described as just plain odd.
And he meant that in a purely scientific way.
“Go see your dad,” he told Selah, knowing how much coming home to his kids meant to Ben. “You haven’t seen him in five days.”
Selah placed the last beaker in the box and took off while Devon continued cleaning. Bringing all this crap outside had been a mistake, and next time, they would keep the experiments indoors where there was air conditioning.
He was almost finished when Simone’s perfume hit his nostrils. “Here’s your cherry popsicle.”
Grinning, he turned to his wife, wondering if she’d ever figured out that he only liked cherry because it reminded him of the cherry red lipstick she always wore.
“Thank you.” He took the popsicle and peeled back the wrapper. “Did you already eat one?”
Her slender shoulders shrugged, all innocent until you noticed that mischievous sparkle in her eyes. “Not yet, but I’m hoping you can feed me something bigger later.”
Devon paused, the popsicle halfway to his mouth. “You are one dirty, dirty woman.”
