“There are some left,” Archer said and found the baggie of them on another counter. “Mom moved them when she put them in the bag.”
“Sundaes it is,” he said. “Watch the master at work.” He pulled out two, stuck them in the microwave to warm, then scooped out ice cream and poured the hot fudge over them.
When their snacks were assembled, they climbed onto the chairs at the island and dug in.
“You’re great at everything,” Archer said. “Do you do anything bad?”
“We all have flaws,” he said.
“What are yours?”
Great. How to handle this?
The last thing he needed to do was unload on an eight-year-old. And the flaws he had were more adult related.
“Well, I’ve admitted I’m not good at laundry.”
“Me neither. Mom says I’ll get better, but I don’t know why I’ve got to.”
“Because there are a lot of things in this life we’ve got to learn to do.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I wish I did. Like I wish there was some playbook that said what to do in every situation, but there’s not.”
“There should be,” Archer said. “It’d make life easier.”
He snorted. “Tell me about it.”
“Maybe you can write one,” Archer said. “Or we could do it together.”
He laughed. “I wish,” he said. “But everyone’s life and situation are different. You’d have to be really smart to know how to handle things you don’t even know could happen.”
“You’re smart.”
“I think I am,” he said and ate another bite of ice cream. “So are you.”
“Nah,” Archer said around a mouthful. “I don’t get as good grades as my father says I should get. He’s always telling me I have to study more, but I like to have fun. I don’t understand why I have to spend hours reading things that aren’t fun or interesting. Why can’t I read things I like?”
Talk about a tricky conversation.
He wanted to rip Archer’s father apart for his treatment of the kid. This was just another sample of Tucker that had bled out in their time together.
But talking badly about a guy he never met wasn’t in his nature.
He could hate the asshole privately though.
“I think anytime you read something, you learn from it. And life is about learning. The more you enjoy doing something, the more you want to.”
“I like comic books, but Dad says that’s not reading.”
He shrugged. “Everyone has an opinion,” he said. “The important thing is to respect each other’s thoughts on them. That’s how we learn also.”
“Do you like comic books?”
“I did when I was your age. I haven’t really read them much lately. But we can do that tomorrow. You can show me some of the ones you like the most and why. See, I’ll learn from them.”
“That’d be cool.”
