Round Three #2
“Do you know Mrs. Sava?” He watches me, completely at ease as I pull my front door closed and grab the remaining balls. “She was nice to me and always gave my balls back. It sucks she doesn’t live here anymore.”
“Uh… yeah.” I meet his playful eyes. “I knew her. She was my grandma.”
He gasps, excited at this new morsel of information. “Really?”
“Really. But the last time I saw her, I was about your age. It’s been a long time.”
“Wow. That’s a really long time.” He skips down my porch steps and angles right. “You’re a grownup, so you must be, like…”
Thirty-two years old.
“Gosh. Seventy or somethin’, huh?!”
“Do I look seventy to you?”
“You look like my dad’s age. And my karate coach’s age.
Which is like seventy.” He flashes a charming smile and swaggers from my lawn to his.
“They don’t like it when I say that age, though.
So sometimes I say it even more.” He leans my way and snickers.
“It’s fun when they get grumpy and loud about it. ”
Oh boy.
Lots of trouble.
“My dad said you used to go to school with him seventy years ago.”
I firm my lips, even as he glances across and smirks. “I went to school with your dad. But not seventy years ago. It was more like twenty…ish years ago. Twenty-five, I guess.”
“But that’s a really long time ago, before I was even born. Guess that means you went to school with my mom, too, huh?”
“Uh…” I glance around for… I don’t even know. A savior, maybe? “I’m not sure. Who is your mom?”
“Aria Sinclair.”
“Oh, sure. I went to school with her.” I study his eyes.
His cheekbones. His jawline. I scan the boy all over for those Sinclair genes, and still…
come up empty. “Your dad married Aria Sinclair?” In disbelief, I whistle under my breath.
“Pretty sure they were mortal enemies way back in second grade.”
“My dad says she always liked to argue with him.”
I snort. I should hope so. That man I re-met a week ago deserves to be argued with. But instead of saying those things out loud, I stop at the bottom of Billy’s porch steps and drop my load of balls so they bounce across the grass. Leaning to the side, I spy an open gate leading into the backyard.
I’m about to say some stuff to your dad, little guy, and I’d rather you didn’t listen. “You should take all these out back. Maybe count all of your balls to make sure we got ‘em all. Can you do that?”
“Sure!” He drops his basketballs and thrusts his soccer-ball-belly forward. “It looks like I’m having a baby, huh?”
“It sure does,” I snicker. “It was nice to meet you, Jeremy Caster. I’m glad you came to say hello, even though…” I firm my voice and steal a little of the boy’s smile. “It wasn’t very safe to do so. Don’t knock on front doors anymore, okay?”
“What else should I do?” Damn him. He stares up at me with glittering, puppy dog eyes. “I needed my ball.”
“Well… Maybe next time, you could stand right where my yard and your yard meet, then shout my name.”
His cheeks flame bright red. “Shout your name?”
“Yup. Really loud. That way, you still get what you need, but you stay safe, and as extra bonus points, more people in the street will know what you’re doing and who you’re talking to. That way, if I tried to snatch you up and put you in my soup, there would be witnesses.”
He inches forward. Closer… closer… just a little closer. “Are you a witch, Maggie? Do you cook children in your soups very often?”
“Not for a whole week.” I ruffle his hair and wink to soften the fear in his eyes, then I tilt my chin toward the gate and wait while he collects his balls, drops one, and kicks the leftovers across the grass.
The instant the gate shuts and the latch catches, I trudge up Billy freaking Caster’s front steps and slam the side of my fist against his front door.
“Shit!” Bam! Something crashes inside the house.
Then a muffled, “fuck” follows, and with it, the clatter of a heavy tool landing in the kitchen sink.
“Dammit. What?” he snarls. “I don’t wanna join your church, I don’t want anymore cookies, my son already has enough extracurricular activities, and if it’s Barbara, I’m not telling you about that chick being back in town, so give it up already. ”
Barbara? Am I the chick?
“Open the door!” I knock again and take a step back. “It’s Maggie, and I’ve got some things to say to you.”
“Maggie?” He slams a door and knocks something over. Hissing and stomping his way through, he whips his front door open and reveals himself in jeans and… well, not much else. Just a bare, sweaty chest.
Irritated, he does to me what I did to Jeremy: pokes his head through the doorway and looks left, then right. But unlike me and Jeremy, he brings a fiery glare back around until I feel the burn on my face. “This is private property, Ms. Sava. The hell are you doing here?”
“Your son could’ve been abducted, you know that?”
From fire to pure, unadulterated fear, his eyes flare wide. “What?” He shoves onto the porch, forcing me onto my back foot, then he darts to the end of his porch and leans over the side. “Jeremy!? Where are you?”
“In the backyard!” The boy doesn’t come through the gate, but the thud-thud-thud of a ball on the fence makes me twitch-twitch-twitch.