“I’ve never been to this park at night. It’s really pretty,” Jalen stated.
“It is. I bring Alynn here sometimes since it isn’t too far from my brother’s house,” he replied, glancing over. There was only one other boat on the water, and it wasn’t close to them, but he still wanted to be cautious. “They do puppet shows, mime shows, and things like that.”
“That sounds like fun. I’ll have to bring the girls. The twins will love it.”
Rohan smiled at her. She hadn’t spoken much about her girls when they were at dinner. Though he’d inquired about them, she had given him vague answers. He understood she didn’t want to tell him too much too early on.
“I’m sure they’d have fun. On warm days, there are ice cream and shaved ice vendors. When it gets cooler, they have cocoa during the shows.”
“For ice cream, I just may come by myself.”
He laughed along with her. She had told him she was a fan of desserts and sweets. He could see that she had not been joking about it.
They spent another twenty minutes on the lake before they headed back to turn the boat in.
Once they were back inCasemia’sparking lot, Rohan got out to open her door for her. He’d parked beside her car, but his mother had raised him right. When she unlocked her door, he opened it as she turned to him.
“I had a great time tonight. Thank you.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself. So let’s make a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
“A deal that you won’t make me wait two weeks until I can take you out again.”
Rohan watched as she bit her bottom lip. “I think I can do that.”
Grabbing her hand, he brought it to her lips, placing a kiss on it. “You just let me know when. Goodnight, gorgeous.”
“Goodnight, Rohan.”
When she had slid into her car, Rohan closed the door and stepped back. He watched her pull out before going back to his car and getting in. He wanted to take her out again next week, but he knew she had other responsibilities, so he would wait until she was free.
7
Jalen sat at the picnic table and watched as Mikal spun the twins on the merry-go-round. Both girls were laughing and having a ball, but Jalen was worried that with the speed Mikal was spinning them, one or both of the girls would fall off and hurt themselves.
“Mikal, slow it down a little,” she instructed.
“Okay, I’ll try,” her little sister called back.
She was having a bit of trouble catching the handle and was waiting for it to slow down some. However, Kodi walked over, grabbed onto one handle, and stopped the park toy altogether.
“Kodi!” Both twins whined.
“She said slow it down, not stop,” Nathan told her, with a bit of sass.
“Yeah, well, I’m stopping it. It’s lunchtime. So, let’s eat,” Kodi informed them.
“I don’t want to eat right now,” Nathan stated, only to have her stomach growl and contradict her. The little girl sighed. “Okay, maybe I’m just a little bit hungry.”
Jalen laughed, shaking her head as her sisters came over. She tried to make it a habit for them all to do something together at least once a week. When she had weekends off, she would take them to the park, the trampoline parks, or even the water parks.If she had an off day during the week, she made a point of taking her sisters’ lunch to school, playing a game together, or even watching a movie before the twins’ bedtime.
Jalen watched as Landon gave the twins and Mikal some hand sanitizer before taking some for herself and handing the bottle to Kodi. Once Jalen used the sanitizer as well, she fixed Nathan a plate while Kodi fixed one for Omari.
For today’s picnic lunch, they’d made finger sandwiches, brought various bags of chips, a mixture of fruit, and some cookies that Landon had made. She’d brought some juice boxes for her younger siblings and water for herself.
As they ate, she listened to Omari tell them about a preview for a movie she’d seen on television the night before. She couldn’t remember the name of it, and no one could figure out which one she was talking about because all she knew was that there were two girls in it, but Jalen agreed they could go see it either way once they figured out which movie it was.
