His eyes enlarged as he nodded. “I told all my friends at school that I know a real firefighter. They really liked my truck. I took it for show-and-tell.”
“That’s awesome. Maybe one day I’ll get a chance to show you a real firetruck.”
He gasped in awe.
“Only if your mom says it’s okay.”
I stood, rising to meet Michelle’s gaze. She narrowed her eyes at what I’d just told her son. I wasn’t taking it back. Instead, I leaned in again for a kiss, but made sure to kiss her cheek.
“You look good enough to eat, sugar,” I whispered in her ear so Diego wouldn’t hear. I only stepped back when I saw her visibly shiver. I let my ravenous eyes rove over the sleeveless dress she wore that stopped about mid-calf.
“D-Diego, make sure you go to the bathroom before we leave.”
“Aw, Mama! I alread–”
“Hey, Diego,” I began, squatting low again, “we’re gonna have a great time today. We’ll go to that museum your mama promised you and the movie, and we’ll get to eat all the popcorn.”
I stopped, watching as his face grew in excitement.
“But we can’t go until you go to the bathroom first. Deal?” I stuck out my hand.
I nodded and smiled when he smacked it and said, “Deal!”
“You’re getting off to a good start with him already,” Michelle stated as I stood.
“Kids love me. I used to have to babysit my brothers all the time.”
She frowned. “You didn’t have nannies growing up?”
“We did. But my mother is old school. She wanted to raise kids who were at least somewhat self-sufficient. So there were times we were left alone. Believe me, that was unheard of in high-society, but my mother wasn’t to be deterred and my father can’t say no to my mother. Much like the same way I can’t say no to you.” I checked quickly over her shoulder to make sure Diego wasn’t around before moving in for the kiss I’d wanted to take when she first opened the door.
“Ready!” Diego came back a second later, forcing us to part.
“Let’s get this day started.”
I took Diego’s much smaller hand in my right and waited for Michelle to lock up before taking hers in my left.
Our first stop was to the museum. I wanted to be there bright and early so Diego would have as much time as he wanted to play and touch all the cool exhibits. The movie we were going to see wasn’t until one, so I figured three hours was plenty of time to let him run around. And just as I’d predicted, he had tons of fun. One exhibit in particular he learned how to make slime and made me promise that we could make it one day at home. I caught Michelle’s worried look as I made the promise. I tried to discern if her fear was due to not fully believing that I’d keep my promise or something else. But I didn’t have time to figure that out because Diego was up and running again, dragging me by the hand to the next exhibit.
We were at the museum for about three hours when it was time to leave for the movies. I’d gotten Diego his popcorn as promised and he sat in the seat between Michelle and I, happily munching away while he watched and giggled at the animated characters on the screen.
“Are you crying?” I teased Michelle low in her ear as we were exiting the theater.
“It was so good,” she commented, laughing and wiping her eyes. “I get emotional at children’s movies.”
“I see,” I laughed.
“Michelle?” I heard from behind us and turned around to a man I didn’t know. My hand instinctively went to Michelle’s lower back while my free hand reached for Diego.
“Hey, Larry,” Michelle replied, a bit uneasily.
“Out with Diego, huh?”
“Yeah. He wanted to see this movie.”
“Same here. The kids tried to drag Janine and I but she’s in bed with a nasty cold, so I got stuck with daddy duty today.” The guy, Larry, chuckled annoyingly. “Well, it was good seeing you.”
“Bye.”
