He starts laughing so hard he has to brace a hand on the hood.Gainz looks up.“What?”
Grit points at me, still wheezing.“He bought a booster seat.”
Gains’s grin comes slow and mean.“No shit.Damn, Mellow is getting’ domesticated.”
I shut the door harder than necessary.“You two done?”
“Not remotely,” Grit adds.“You’ve gone and tied yourself down.”
“It’s for safety,” I explain.
“Sure it is.”Gainz challenges.
“It is,” I repeat.
And it is.Quinn rides in a booster or she doesn’t ride with me at all.Lucy could’ve brought her own, but I didn’t want her having to think about it and move the one she has around.So I picked one up yesterday.New.Good ratings.Easy latch system.Had to ask the woman in the store for help, which was humiliating and somehow not humiliating enough to stop me.
Grit wipes at his eyes.“Chux isn’t going to belivee this.”
“Tell him and I’ll bury you in the marina.”
He grins wider.“Oh, now that’s the Mellow we know.”
I leave before the conversation can get any worse.
By the time I pull up to Lucy’s house the next morning, the sky is bright blue and the whole street smells like cut grass and sun-warmed pavement.
I text as I pull in her driveway.Outside.That’s it.
No flourish.No room for misreading.The front door opens a minute later and Lucy steps out with Quinn bouncing beside her, and for a second the world narrows so hard I feel it in my ribs.
Lucy’s wearing a sundress.Simple, soft blue, fitted through the waist and loose over her legs.Nothing flashy.Sandals.Her hair down for once, falling over her shoulders in pale waves that catch in the sunlight.
I stare longer than I should.
Quinn’s in a yellow dress with little white flowers and two crooked braids that tell me Lucy did them in a rush.
Both of them stop at the bottom of the steps when they see the SUV.
Then Quinn spots the booster through the back door that I have opened waiting for her and gasps like I parked a unicorn in her driveway.
“Mama!He has a seat for me!”
Lucy looks from the booster to me.Then back to the booster.Something shifts in her expression.Surprise first.Then something quieter.Warmer.
“You bought that?”Lucy asks
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I know.”
She huffs out a soft laugh.“You really like saying that.”
“Usually because it’s true.”
Quinn is already pulling at the rear passenger handle to shut the door.I step around her and help get her buckled in while she chatters a mile a minute about cotton candy, ferris wheels, and whether the spring festival will have goats this year because apparently goats are a deciding factor in local events now.
