Rhodes was no Mrs. Jones.
I’d liked him even when he gave me the stink eye. And I had no idea what his plans were. Plans with me. I knew what I wouldn’t mind them looking like but…
I happened to look over and found Amos leaning against the counter, looking way too introspective.
“What?” I asked him, popping the tab on my own soda and taking a sip.
The boy shook his head.
“You can tell me anything, Little Sting, and I can tell you want to.”
That seemed to be enough for him. “Are you flirting with my dad?” he straight-up asked.
I almost spit the soda out. “No…？”
He blinked. “No?”
“Maybe?”
Amos raised an eyebrow.
It was my turn to blink. “Yes, okay. Yes. But I flirt with everyone. Men and women. Children. You should see me around pets. I used to have a fish, and I sweet-talked her too. Her name was Gretchen Wiener. I miss her.” She had passed away a few years ago, but I still thought about her from time to time. She’d been a good travel companion. Not fussy at all.
That had the teenager’s cheeks going puffy for a second.
He fucking liked me. I knew it.
“Does it bother you if I flirt with your dad?” I paused. “Would it bother you if I liked him?” That wasn’t the best word to describe it, but it was the simplest.
That got him to scoff. “No! I’m sixteen not five.”
“But you’re still his wittle baby, Am. And my feelings won’t be hurt”—that was a lie, they would be—“if you weren’t okay with it. You’re my friend too. Just like your dad. I don’t want to make things weird.”
The kid gave me a disgusted expression that made me laugh. “I don’t care. We already talked about it anyway.”
“You did?”
He nodded but didn’t clear up what they’d talked about. Instead, he got a funny look on his face, and I’d bet a finger it was his version of a protective expression. “He’s been alone a long time. Like, a long time. My whole life, he’s had some girlfriends, and none of them lasted that long. With my dad Billy not here and my uncles moving away, he doesn’t have that many friends, not like when he was in the Navy; he knew everybody then.”
I wasn’t sure where he was going with this so I stayed quiet, sensing there was more on his mind.
“My mom told me to tell you that it takes him a while to trust people.”
“Your mom said that?”
“Yeah, she asked me.”
“About your dad… and me?”
Amos nodded and took another sip. “Don’t tell him I told you, but you make him smile a lot.”
There went my heart again.
“You look… you know, like that, and… whatever. I don’t care if you like him, and I don’t care if he likes you. I want him… you know… to be happy. I don’t want him to regret being here,” he said in a way that told me he meant it, but still felt kind of loaded. Like he was giving me his blessing to follow what my heart was asking for. Not that I even really knew what that was.
“In that case, thank you, Am. I’m positive your dad doesn’t regret anything when it comes to you.” The urge to talk to him about how confusing his father was, was right there, but I wouldn’t do it. Refused to, more like it. “Changing the topic, I guess, I’m staying over tonight and sleeping on the couch since everything is shut off over there. Will you help me bring some of my groceries over, please? I can make dinner, and maybe we can watch a movie or you can let me listen to that song you’ve been working on—”
“Nope.”
I laughed. “It was worth a shot.”
Amos did that tiny smile as he rolled his eyes, and it just made me laugh more.
*
It was the gentle squeeze on my ankle that had me prying an eyelid open.
The room was dark, but the high ceilings reminded me of where I was, where I’d fallen asleep. On Rhodes’s couch.
The last thing I remembered was watching a movie with Amos.
Opening my other eye, I yawned and spotted a big, familiar figure hunched over the other end of the couch. Amos was slowly sitting up, his dad’s hand on his shoulder as he muttered, “Go to bed.”
The kid yawned huge, barely opening his eyes as he nodded, more than half asleep, and stood up. I’d bet he had no idea where he was or even that he was on the couch with me. Sitting up too, I stretched my arms up over my head and croaked, “‘Night, Am.”