Calvin grabbed the baggie of crackers and came to sit with her. “Do you feel good, Mommy?”
“Yes. I feel much better. Thank you for being a good boy for Mr. Alex while I was sick.”
“He’s my friend.”
“He told me what Sam said about Daddy dying.” She locked eyes with him. “Baby, Daddy loved you very much and didn’t want to leave you.”
“I know. That’s what Mr. Alex said too.” He picked at his finger. “I believe you.”
“Well, it was nice of him to come over and stay with you. Shall we bake him some cookies?”
“Um, ’kay,” he said. “But not the gross ones.”
She laughed. “Are you saying I make gross cookies?” She wrapped him in a hug and tickled him. He was laughing too hard to answer, which was just as well, since she knew what he’d say. Making cookies without sugar was tough.
CHAPTER NINE
A week after his babysitting job, Alex was still on probation and growing more restless by the second. The police had dropped the charges, but the internal investigation was taking forever to settle. He’d worked out every day, cleaned his condo, visited his mother, and had dinner at Mitch and Maggie’s. He’d been counting down the days to the Knicks game with his buddies, which was that night. That was until his friends backed out on him at the last minute.
“Dude, you suck,” Alex said to Garrett. “Oscar can’t go either. Now I have two extra tickets and no one to go with.”
“Throw it in the work group chat,” Garrett said. “Someone will go with you.”
“Yeah, with my luck, it’ll be Lee or Justin. No thanks. I’ll call my brothers. Later.”
He tried Johnny and Mitch, but neither was available. Disturbed by how excited he’d been to get out of the house, he resigned himself to ordering in and watching the game at home.
A soft knock interrupted his pity party. It was Calvin and Julia. Calvin held a plate of cookies.
“Oh, good. You’re home,” Julia said. “We wanted to thank you for your help last week.” She nudged Calvin, who hoisted the plate, offering it to Alex.
“Thank you,” he said, taking the plate. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I bake a lot and always have leftovers. It’s no big deal. Really.”
“Okay,” Alex said.
“Calvin, what do you say?”
“Thanks for playin’ with me. And takin’ care of Charlie.”
“You’re welcome,” Alex said. “Thanks for the cookies.”
After an awkward silence, he had an idea. “Hey, I’ve got two extra tickets to the Knicks game tonight. You guys want to go?”
Calvin perked up. “A basketball game? I play basketball.”
“Oh, yeah. Cool.” He looked at Julia, whose eyes were wide with surprise. “My buddies flaked on me. What d’ya say?”
“Alex, I can’t afford that,” Julia whispered, stroking Calvin’s hair as a pretense to cover his ears.
“No worries. It’s on my buddies. They already paid me, and I’m not giving those rat bastards their money back. The tickets will go to waste if we don’t use them.”
“Can we, Mom? Can we?” Calvin was practically hopping up and down with excitement.
“I guess so.” She shot Alex a doubtful look. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Game starts at seven-thirty. I’ll pick you up at quarter to?”
