Chapter 4 #2
My niece was pretty good at keeping herself occupied.
She liked me to talk or play when I was willing to, but she was smart at recognizing when I needed her to be quiet and let me do my own thing.
I rarely had issues with her, probably because we spent most days together, and we learned how each other operated.
Regardless of how well we knew each other, Millie was still a child.
I left her alone for three minutes, thinking that she knew how to tend to herself while I got what I needed out of my bedroom.
It took those few seconds for me to find her standing on top of the counter and reaching for the top shelf.
The mental image of her falling backward made my heart skip a beat. I rushed to where she stood and lifted her off and onto the floor while she looked at me as if I had just done something ridiculous.
“What were you thinking?” I asked, exasperated.
“I want a snack.” She folded her arms across her chest stubbornly. “You were in your room, so I got it myself.”
Mills was used to my apartment from last year, where the snacks were within her reach. Here, I kept snacks on the top shelf where even I could barely reach, so the kid took it upon herself to reach.
I pulled down the few snacks I had left, and I came to realize it was only a couple of cookies left in a packet and a bag full of chip crumbs. I just bought those chips a couple of days ago. Salem’s been eating my snacks; I just can’t prove it.
My hand ran through my hair, frustration washing over me. Millie waited patiently beside me as her eyelashes batted, hoping I could miraculously conjure up a treat for her.
“Do you want a snack from the vending machine?” I asked, trying to remember if I had cash lying around somewhere.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, eyes glistening with excitement.
She ran through the door and into the hallway before I could find the money. She was already down the hall with her hands and face pressed against the glass of the vending machine by the time I found a few dollars.
I crumpled up the bill and smoothed it back out before inserting it. “What do you want?”
She poked at the glass. “That one! No—I want that. Wait, can I have two?”
“All I have is a dollar fifty.”
Mills frowned, her eyes staring longingly at the candy in the machine. She pressed her hand at the top of the glass and slid it down, dramatically sinking to the floor with a pout.
I rolled my eyes at her dramatics. They only worked with suckers who didn’t spend all their time with her to know her manipulations. Even after finally getting her chocolate bar, she kept her head hung low.
“You aren’t going to pout the rest of the night, are you?” I asked dully.
“I wish I had another candy,” she mumbled.
I exhaled through my nose. “And I wish I had more money.”
“I have cash to spare,” offered a voice from behind me.
Turning around, I found myself before someone I recognized. Long hair, incredibly tall—it was Rivers’ friend from earlier today. He knelt before my niece, holding a dollar before her with a warm grin.
He wasn’t alone; a large group of people I’d assume were his friends waited behind him. In the mix was River, leaning against the wall and staring at the ceiling. His eyes weren’t on me for once.
Millie grasped the money with eagerness, but she kept the good manners I instilled in her. After she thanked him, he held his hand up for a high five, and Millie met it.
“Carson, that’s so sweet of you,” one girl in the group cooed.
“Thanks.” My lopsided smile was genuine, as he just spared me from having to deal with a whiny kid for the rest of the night.
He returned the smile. “It’s no problem.”
As the candy bar was about to fall out of the slot, it got caught. Millie raised her hand and slapped it with force. “No!”
Sighing, I shook the machine as best I could, but it wouldn’t budge.
Instinctively, I gripped the sides and tilted it, shook it three times, and kicked it once.
I had learned that trick as a kid and had never forgotten it since.
The only difference was that it was working then, but it wasn’t working now.
Everyone was a witness to my losing fight against a vending machine, and I was about ready to call it quits. Millie already got something out of it, and she really didn’t need a second snack anyway. I also wanted to keep the little dignity I had left from battling with a machine.
Before I could leave, River appeared beside me, his hands on either side of the machine. “You’re doing it wrong.”
Woah, I hadn’t realized just how tall River was until we were side by side.
The top of my head was about level with his mouth, and that was generous.
He was always taller than I was as a kid, but back then, it was a couple of inches.
Now he towered over me so much that it cast a shadow.
It wasn’t that I was small; he and his athlete friends were freakishly tall.
River shook it gently, and then he tilted it to the side. Lastly, with one hard shake, the chocolate bar fell out. Millie’s pout disappeared faster than I could register, and she cheered as she reached her hand into the machine and took the prize.
River faced the vending machine, but his eyes watched me. “You do it too aggressively. It doesn’t like that; it just needs a nudge.”
Of course, River would know; he was the one who taught me the trick.
“Thank you,” I forced, half of me wanting to be pissed and the other half reveling in the fact that he was so close to me. Not wanting to be around River any longer than I needed to, I gripped Millie’s hand and tugged her down the hall with me.
And as I turned into my room, the group was still down the hallway, now getting their own snacks. I looked for River, who clearly had the same idea as me, because he was already watching me. Our eyes locked, and this time he gave me a lopsided smile.
I pulled my eyes away and shut the door behind me, not bothering to return his gesture.