Chapter 31 – Sidney
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
SIDNEY
“What did you forget?” I ask Rissa as the front door of the office opens and closes. I stare at the proofs of Grayson. The ones I can’t seem to take my eyes away from. The ones that tell me I’m in too deep when I’m not supposed to even have a toe in the water. When I realize I haven’t received a response yet, I ask again. “Rissa?”
I rise from my seat, startled to see Luke standing in my doorway. “Luke? Is everything okay?” I hate that my immediate reaction is to be worried about Grayson. “Where is your da?—”
“Dad’s not here,” he says with a sheepish look on his face while I panic over what he is doing here. And then, before I make it around my desk, he holds out a bunch of handpicked daisies. Every hard part of me softens in a way I never could have expected. “I’d like to know if you’d go on a date with me.”
“What?” My chuckle is one of disbelief as I look over his shoulder and spot a woman standing in the lobby. She has shoulder-length silvery-blond hair and a soft smile on her face. “Hello.”
“That’s my nana. She brought me here.”
“Oh.” I blink a couple of times as I look from his nana then to him and then back to her. “Please come in.”
“Stay there, Nana. I need to do this on my own,” Luke says, looking back at her. She holds her hands up and gives him the most adoring grin before she nods.
He clears his throat as he meets my eyes again. “Miss Sidney, I wanted to know if you’d go on a date with me.”
How this little boy melts my heart every single time I see him is beyond me, but he does. I drop down to one knee in front of him. “A date, huh?” I accept the flowers and sniff them. “Thank you, they’re beautiful.”
“Nana says you’re supposed to bring a lady flowers. I’m not sure why. They smell pretty, but then they die, and you have to throw them in the trash, but she said you have to, so I did.”
“Well,” I say through a laugh, “they do die, but they also make the lady feel awfully special.” I cup the side of his face. “Where exactly would you like to take me on this date of yours?”
“I was wondering if you’d go to a picnic with me.”
“A picnic, huh?”
His teeth sink into his lower lip as he rocks on his heels. “There’s a picnic that we have here in Sunnyville, and I was wondering . . .” His eyes are innocent and full of hope.
“If I would go with you?”
He nods and then straightens his spine as if he realizes that he needs to act like a grown-up. “We were on our way there, and I asked Nana if it would be okay if we stopped by here and asked you to come with us. We already have a lunch made. There are sandwiches and sodas—I only get to have soda on special occasions—and chocolate chip cookies. Nana makes the best chocolate chip cookies because she puts extra chips in them and?—”
“Chocolate chip cookies?” My mouth waters at just the thought of them.
He nods enthusiastically, and I notice how the fingers on his right hand are crossed for luck. This kid is killing me in the best kind of way.
“You’re on your way there right now?”
“Yep.”
“We didn’t mean to interrupt your day,” his nana says as she steps forward and puts a protective hand on Luke’s shoulder. “I’m Betsy Malone, Grayson’s mom.” She extends her hand, and I stand to shake it.
“Nice to meet you.”
She’s striking. There’s a graceful fluidity to her when she moves, her smile is welcoming in every sense of the word, and her eyes—so similar to Grayson’s—are the sort that see way more than you want them to see.
“Like I said, we didn’t mean to just barge on in here, but it’s a beautiful afternoon and we thought you might like to get out and enjoy Sunnyville instead of being cooped up in this office.”
“Thank you for thinking of me,” I say with caution because I know how sensitive Grayson is to Luke being around women he is seeing.
Seeing ? Is that what we’re doing? Seeing each other?
But if no one knows that’s what is going on, would it bug him if I went to the picnic with them?
I really don’t want to turn Luke down, but how exactly do I ask to call Grayson to find out if this is okay and not offend Betsy or Luke?
“I think I . . .” I look from Betsy to Luke and then back to Betsy. “Does Grayson know you’re here?”
“Nope,” Luke says and laughs. “Nana is all about spontaneity. She says it’s the best kind of adventure.” He looks back her way as if he’s so proud that she’s taught him this.
“Grayson will be fine with it,” Betsy says with a nod. “But you’re more than welcome to give him a call and ask. Although, while he’s at the dispatch desk, he typically doesn’t carry his cell. It’s a department protocol thing.” She waves a hand in indifference. “If he gets mad, I’ll take the heat.”
Stuck in indecision with a pair of puppy-dog eyes loaded with hope staring at me, I put my hands on my knees and bend over so Luke and I are face to face.
“So, this is like a friend date? Food and fun and friends?”
“And nanas.” He bounces on his toes.
“Okay,” I say with a definitive nod.
Luke’s eyes widen, and his smile does even more so. “You mean you want to go with us?”
“Of course, buddy. I just need a few minutes to sort some things.”
“Okay, we’ll wait out here.”
He shuffles his way out to the reception area with Betsy in tow. I have a task list a million miles long and yet I can’t help but wonder why I’m walking to a picnic when a few weeks ago I would have laughed at the idea of doing it.
My desk is loaded with Post-It notes of things I have to do, but I shut my laptop with a click and walk out of the office without any qualms about leaving it until tomorrow. I’m actually kind of looking forward to sinking my heels into the grass—there has to be grass at a picnic, right? And getting to hang out with Luke.
The small-town air is affecting me.
That has to be what it is.
But I let it affect me even more, along with Luke’s giggles, as we play chocolate chip cookie warfare—a game we made up as we sit under the shady elm on the outskirts of the playground at his school. My cheeks hurt from laughing, and I know for a fact a little piece of my heart has been lost to Luke.
“Luke. Man. Come play.”
Luke angles his head over to his friend—a cute little guy with red hair and the most adorable freckles across his nose and cheeks. “Sorry, Jim, I’m busy with my friend.”
“You sure? We’re in an epic battle over here.” He points to the handball court.
Luke nods and smiles. “Yep.”
“You don’t have to entertain me, buddy. I’m just enjoying the sunshine. Go. Play. I want to watch.”
“You want to watch?” His eyes light up just like his smile.
“Of course, I do.” He gives me one last look for reassurance before he runs off, and I call out to him, “Good luck.”
So I watch. Battle after battle of handball with rules I don’t know. I’m cognizant of some of the other moms peering at me from behind their sunglasses. Betsy does her best to introduce me to everyone who comes over. I know most of them are here to satiate their curiosity as they ask me benign questions that seem simple on the surface but are really searching for more.
But it’s okay.
The sunshine and laughter and a huge grin on Luke’s face make the chocolate chip cookies I’m going to have to exercise off and the dirt I have to clean off my heels worth it ten times over.