Elsie #2
An hour later, Max was fed, changed into pajamas, and snoring softly with a half-eaten bowl of mac and cheese balancing precariously on his stomach while the end credits of Monsters Inc. playing softly on the television.
“I hope you’re hungry for—” Ava stalled in the doorway when she noticed him curled up on the couch. “He’s asleep?”
“I think I exhausted him,” I said, looking over with a cheeky grin. “I tend to have that effect on people.”
“But I just put cookies in the oven.” Her face fell, as if not feeding him dessert would be the downfall of her career as a babysitter.
“Do you really want to fill him with sugar at this time of night?” I laughed. “We’re almost in the clear. His mom should be home soon, right?”
“Yeah,” she said, still crestfallen. “In about an hour.”
“I’ll carry him up to bed then,” I said, scooping him into my arms carefully, “and then I’ll come help you clean up in the kitchen.”
“No, please.” She held up a hand. “You’ve done more than enough tonight. I can handle a few dishes.”
She picked up the discarded mac-and-cheese bowl and left the room with an air of disappointment that almost made me feel bad for her.
All in all, the night hadn’t gone too badly, but she looked as if it had been a test she had somehow failed.
I only hoped she knew that I wasn’t there to outscore her.
Ava was sitting at the base of the stairs, head in her hands, when I came out of Max’s room a few minutes later.
She looked weary and exhausted, and despite the fact that I knew I was the last person in the world she wanted to comfort her, I’d never been able to mind my own business when impulse struck.
And every instinct was screaming at me to try to make her feel better about it all.
“Hey, Ava,” I said, settling down beside her on the stairs. “Are you okay?”
She raised her head slowly, taking in a deep breath before looking over at me.
“I should’ve been able to handle it tonight. I shouldn’t have had to call you for help.” She looked off toward the door, eyes going glassy. “But all I did was prove everyone right.”
“You did handle it,” I assured her. “You kept him safe. And hey, after that bath, their cat is probably cleaner than he’s been in years.”
“Yeah,” she sniffled, a wisp of a laugh sneaking out, “and I have the scratches to prove it.”
“All in all, not a bad night then, right?”
“How did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“You came here and got everything under control in a matter of minutes. He listened to you. He wanted to hang out with you. He even picked up every mess he’d left around the house because of you.” She stared at me intently. “Why couldn’t I do that?”
“I used to substitute teach for a while after college.” I shrugged. “I’ve always liked kids.”
“I like kids, too,” she argued, voice high.
I stared at her with a grin until she added, “From a distance…”
I laughed. “You can’t beat yourself up about it,” I told her honestly. “He’s a tough kid. Tougher than most, I’d say. Besides, that’s why it usually takes two parents to keep a household running. You did all the stuff I’m totally clueless about tonight. Like making that kick-ass mac and cheese.”
“It’s one of my specialties.” She laughed, and then, as if remembering she couldn’t allow herself to think of the night with any semblance of humor, sighed once more.
“I can’t believe he fell asleep before I could even give him a cookie,” she groaned, as if it were the cherry on top of the disaster sundae of a night.
She kicked a soldier off the stairs, and we both watched him tumble down until he landed face first on the hardwood floor below.
“Why are you so hung up on the cookies?” I asked.
“I just…wanted him to have at least one good memory of me doing something right. Now, he’s going to tell his mom that all I did was yell and chase him around the house.”
“Kids like being chased.” I offered a half-shrug. “Maybe he thought you were playing a game.”
“Or maybe he thought I was a psychopath, and you were the child-savior coming to deliver him from his wicked babysitter.”
I raised my brows. “I think you’re judging yourself way more harshly than a six-year-old has the capacity to.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been so tense lately,” she admitted, though it looked like it cost her something greatly to do so. “I’ve just been working a lot. And Will’s been too busy to help the way he usually does. And I guess…well, I guess I don’t know how to ask for a break.”
I snorted. “You can take a lesson from me on that account. I have no such issue with kicking my feet back and letting the pieces fall where they may.”
“You seem like you have the type of life where everything would work out regardless,” she added, tone a bit harder.
“You’d be surprised.” I furrowed my brows at the implication, thinking of how far from fine everything in my life had worked out so far. “Maybe I’m just the type of person who’s comfortable in the chaos.”
“I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” Ava sighed. “Being bitchy to you.”
“What?” I said, high-pitched and weak. “No.”
“You don’t have to lie.” Ava stared at me, analyzing every square inch of my face in a way that made me shift uncomfortably.
“It’s just, I feel a little jealous of you.
You’re free and unrestrained, and you seem to have everything going for you.
It makes it hard to be around you. I don’t want to feel that way, but I do. I guess I’m just bitter.”
“You’re jealous of me?” I made a noise that was halfway between a laugh mingled with a gasp. “I’m not free, Ava. I’m lost. And unemployed. And almost completely broke.”
And that was just scratching the surface of everything going wrong in my life.
“Besides, do you think I’m not jealous of you and your beautiful hair and this established life you have? I’d give anything for that.”
She touched her hair with a proud smile. “You think my hair is beautiful.”
“Please,” I deadpanned. “You could practically be the star of a Pantene commercial.”
She laughed, looking a little bit lighter than she had. That was a success in my book.
“Hey, Elsie?” Ava said, staring over at me with meaning in her eyes.
“Yeah?”
“I really don’t like kids.”
I laughed until the sound of the fire alarm blaring startled us both into action.
“Oh my God.” Ava leaped to her feet. “The cookies!”
I rushed after her, following the scent of Ava’s burned hopes for the evening into the kitchen, which was encompassed by a cloud of smoke.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” she groaned, reaching for the oven mitts in frantic haste.
She pulled open the oven door, letting a burst of heat explode outward, and snatched the cookie tray in her mitted hands. We both coughed on the smoke while I dove to open the kitchen window.
I rushed around looking for a broom until I found one in a hall closet.
Grabbing it, I rushed back until I was directly below the fire alarm and started jumping up, whacking at it with the broom as if it were some flashy arcade game, rather than the contraption that was about to wake our feral child back up.
“I can’t get it to turn off!” I yelled over the noise.
She pushed a chair over, climbing on top of it, her hands still protected by the polka-dot oven mitts as she reached for the broom. “Here, let me try.”
When she assumed my position, I took the opportunity to run to the kitchen door, hoping to air out the smoke-infested room.
But when I pulled open the door, instead of a gust of fresh night air, I was met with something even chillier.
The disappointed, disgruntled stare of Will Hughes himself.
“Elsie?” He gaped, eyes taking in Ava on the chair with the broom, the cloud of smoke that was still dispersing, and finally the cookies burned to a crisp on the kitchen table. “Ava?”
“Hi, Will,” she said, letting the broom drop to the ground.
“What the actual hell is going on?”
“Oh, you know,” I laughed nervously, “just baking cookies?”
And in my heart, I believed that every scathing look Will had spent his whole life perfecting had been mere practice for this one, specific moment.
Lucky me.