The parlor across had an adult-sized playpen filled with colorful plastic balls.
Three Littles ran through, each one holding a Nerf gun, firing foam darts at each other.
“Slow down! And the Nerf guns are outside toys!” Auntie Athena called out.
The Littles wisely slowed down. Kendrick had seen Athena take her paddle to more than a few Littles’ bottoms over the course of the past several years. They were smart to heed her warning.
“Daddy!” Cami said, turning to Isaiah as they all continued to walk through the house, “Want to come see how high I can jump on the trampoline?”
“I’d love to, babydoll,” her Daddy said.
“You wanna come, too, Uncle Kendrick?”
“You bet,” he answered. “I’ll watch for a few minutes and then I’ll sort of patrol around here and make sure everything is okay.”
Kendrick liked to check behind the house, on the other side of the back fence, every now and then. It hadn’t happened so far, but if word got out as to what kind of establishment Auntie Athena ran, there might be peeping toms hiding in the trees that dotted the property line.
Athena said, “If you want to decorate cookies, you better hurry. Just jump for a few minutes.”
“Yes, Auntie,” Cami said.
Athena broke off and went into the kitchen while the rest of the group kept going to the rear of the house and out the back door.
A couple of other Littles were making use of the trampoline that was in the center of the grassy yard. Kendrick didn’t recognize them, but apparently they were regulars because they called out to Cami, Iris, Lana, and Annika by name.
“Go jump,” Isaiah told Cami. “But you heard Auntie. If you want to decorate Christmas cookies, don’t stay out here too long.”
Kendrick watched as the Little hugged her Daddy.
Would he ever have that?
Perhaps with the waitress at the diner…
That didn’t even make sense, he told himself. The odds of her being a Little were slim to none. And he wasn’t sure he could be with a woman who didn’t have that Little nature. Being a Daddy was just essential to who he was.
His thoughts were interrupted when he heard someone saying, “I’m glad I got here in time to decorate the cookies. I was having lunch at Musso and Frank’s and I kept getting stopped by people wanting to talk! It’s so nice being there and not, you know, out among the gross people right outside on Hollywood Boulevard.”
He turned to see the source of the statement.
Oh, that has to be Tonya, he thought with a slight shake of his head.
Tonya was tall, tan, had obviously bleached-blonde hair, and wore the type of oversized sunglasses movie stars wear when they don’t want to be recognized in public.
She instantly annoyed him.
Two other women were walking on either side of her as they came toward the oversized swing set to the right.
“Did you see anyone famous this time?” one of the ladies asked.
Tonya scoffed. “Just Leo. Of course he asked me out.Again.”
“What did you tell him?” the other woman asked.
“No!” Tonya said with a laugh. “We tried it once. It was fun. But just a fling. We want different things. It would never work.”
Kendrick couldn’t believe it. This was perhaps the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.
Someone needed to tell her, too.
