Page 303 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
Then, I stood up. “You look frozen right up to your eyelashes,” I said to Adam. “Why don’t I get you a cup of coffee?”
“You don’t have to,” Adam protested, rising half out of his seat when he did so, but I put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down.
“Let me,” I said. “You just saved hundreds of our customers from freezing out there; it’s the least I can do.”
Adam laughed and settled back down. “You’re also the one paying my checks,” he reminded me, his eyes twinkling.
“Are you asking for a raise?” I joked.
“Maybe,” Adam said, shrugging easily.
I snorted and shook my head. “I’ll have to talk to HR about it,” I said.
“You’re the boss, boss,” Adam teased.
I grinned and headed to get him that coffee that I had promised him. When I came back, Ethan was showing his dad his picture. “That’s really good, buddy,” Adam told him.
I cleared my throat as I set down the coffee. “Look, I’m sure you have some sort of arrangements made for him already, but I just want to make sure you know that if you ever want to bring him in here to work, or if he needs a place to hang out and wait for you after his ski club is over, we can always find someone to look after him here.”
Adam looked surprised, but he masked it quickly. “Not necessary,” he said, shrugging. “I mean, yeah, you’ll see him around here sometimes, but his Gramps takes care of him a lot, and I try to set up my work schedule so that it’s at the same times that he’s at school or ski club.”
“Sure,” I said easily. “I just wanted to make sure you know that if you ever need anything, I’m always here. Or if you need to take days off because he’s sick or anything, I’ll do my best to make the lifts not break next time.”
Adam laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind, and I may just take you up on that,” he said, grinning at me.
“Plus, she said she’d come skiing with us sometime!” Ethan announced excitedly.
“Oh, did she?” Adam asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
I blushed brilliantly. “Only if it’s okay with you,” I quickly clarified.
“I think that might be fun sometime,” Adam said, and Ethan cheered, his grin stretching from ear to ear.
CHAPTER 23
ADAM
Ethan skipped into the kitchen on Friday morning, and I hid a smile, glad to see that he was feeling totally better again. To be honest, he’d been back to his normal self by Wednesday night, and he’d gone to school yesterday as well. But I still kept waiting for a possible relapse, for him to start feeling ‘yucky’ again. But he seemed totally fine.
I couldn’t help feeling relieved about that, even though I knew there had been no serious problems in the first place. It was good to see him back at his usual energy levels, though.
Dad had called me not long after Ethan and I had returned from the mountain on Wednesday. He had apologized for not being around; he had been out grocery shopping at the time, and he had forgotten his phone out in the center console of his truck, where it had frozen so that the battery died faster than it should have. He sounded worried that I had called him, and he wanted to make sure that everything was all right.
I had been able to assure him that everything really was all right. In fact, things felt better than they had in a long time.
I still knew there was a conversation to be had with Bailey. But she seemed surprisingly okay with suddenly finding out that I had a young son. I couldn’t tell her how much that acceptance meant to me, or how much it meant to hear her offer to help me out with him if I ever needed anything.
It meant almost as much as seeing the two of them interact with one another. Ethan had chatted all about Bailey on the way home, telling me how pretty she was and how she was probably a great skier too because she’d been skiing forever, and how she was from a place where they didn’t have ski club and that must be horrible.
I had to laugh at that last. I was just glad that the two of them had really gotten along. I would never think twice about leaving Ethan with her, I already knew. For some reason, I believed that she would take care of him as though he was her own son.
“I drew a picture,” Ethan announced now, brandishing the piece of paper excitedly.
“When, this morning?” I asked in surprise. I glanced at my watch, wondering how he could possibly have drawn a picture that morning. Of course, he didn’t have quite as many responsibilities first thing in the morning. I had to get breakfast made, and pack his lunch. Make sure that he was up and that he had clothes laid out for school. Make sure that his ski gear was all together so that he could go skiing with his friend and his friend’s dad after school that day. And so on. He just had to get dressed and brush his teeth. Still, I didn’t think he had had time to draw a picture.
Ethan laughed. “No, I drew it yesterday in school,” he told me. “But you need to take it to work today.”
I blinked in surprise. It wouldn’t be the first time that I had brought one of Ethan’s pictures in to work and hung it up in my office, but usually, he didn’t ask me to do it; I was the one asking him if I could keep the picture.
