“It’s nice to meet you,” I said, even though we’d met multiple times before. I couldn’t reasonably expect a kid to remember everybody she met, especially when I was just the younger sister of her brother’s best friend. “Am I allowed to call you Flo or is only your brother allowed to call you that?”
“My friends call me Flo,” she said. She didn’t follow up any more than that, so I looked up at Charlie for clarification. He was watching us with a fond look on his face, the same one he had whenever he talked about his younger siblings. He was no help to me, though, as he just shrugged. I looked at Flo again.
“Am I your friend?” I asked. I felt a little stupid and insecure asking it like that, but Flo didn’t seem to mind.
“I guess so. But you have to be nicer than the last girl he dated.”
Charlie made a strangled sound and tried to grab Flo’s hand to take her inside, but I held out a hand to stop him. I was curious to hear what she was going to say.
“Oh, yeah?” I asked. “What was she like?”
Flo looked at Charlie, then scooted closer to me. She cupped her hands around her mouth and whispered in my ear, “I didn’t like her. She was mean.”
“I promise I’m nicer than her,” I whispered back. I was assuming we were talking about Courtney here because I couldn’t imagine that Charlie would date anyone else that mean. The fact that he and Courtney even managed for a week was a miracle.
“You’re prettier too,” Flo said. “He has good taste.”
Charlie made that same strangled sound again. “Flo, who taught you to say that?”
She blinked innocently. “I heard Elliot say it to Penny.”
Charlie muttered something under his breath about killing his brother, and Flo giggled. Charlie grabbed her hand, this time without me interfering.
“Come on, I think Penny made you a snack.” He looked at me. “Wait here, I’ll be back in a minute.”
Flo slipped her hand out of Charlie’s and wrapped her arms around my neck.
“Bye Madison! It was nice to meet you.”
I hugged her back. “It was nice to meet you too, sweetie.”
She let go and happily skipped off to the house with Charlie at her side, waving at me once more before going inside. I stood up and groaned as I felt the stretch in my legs.
“I’m getting too old for this,” I muttered. All of eighteen years old and I couldn’t even kneel on the ground without my knees aching.
“You sound like a grandma,” Charlie said. I spun around quickly. I hadn’t heard him come outside.
“As long as I don’t look like one,” I shot back. Charlie grinned and closed the gap between us. His arms circled around me as he pulled me in for a deep kiss. My limbs felt like they were turning to Jell-o as I sank into his arms.
“I’ve been wanting to do that all day,” he murmured.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Our job doesn’t exactly provide privacy.”
“Oh, yeah.” I sighed. “That.”
Any other year, it would be fine. We could sneak a kiss on our lunch break or in the hall between classes. But with Courtney as our boss, it was impossible. I didn’t even want to consider what she might do if she realized we were together, because I was sure she had a thousand ways she could make my life a living hell.
“Thanks for being so nice to Flo,” Charlie said. “I know she can say some… interesting stuff sometimes.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” I said. No worse than I’d heard from the young children I’d taught. “And of course I’m going to be nice to her. Who wouldn’t be?”
Charlie sighed and looked off to the side. I wondered exactly what Flo meant when she’d said that Courtney wasn’t nice. Had she been rude to Flo and the other kids? If she had been, I was sure that was the catalyst for their breakup. I couldn’t imagine any universe where Charlie would stand by while anyone was mean to his siblings, let alone if that person was his girlfriend. He loved his brothers and sisters more than anything in the world.
“Regardless,” Charlie said, “you’re really great with her.”
“I think sometimes you forget that I work with kids,” I said. I glanced at the house. “Besides… she means so much to you. I want her to like me.”
