“I don’t know whatyousaid.”
“Whichpart?”
“None of it,” Riley said, poking his finger in Jake’s ear. “How come your ear issobig?”
Jake swatted his hand away. “I don’t know. I wasn’t aware that it was. Hey, I have a good idea. Why don’t you play with Kyle? He doesn’t care about giving people personal space either. Doyou,Kyle?”
“Nope,” he said, grinning, as he chomped on his ownTwizzler.
Jake extracted Riley and dumped him onto his brother. And like a flea clomping on to a new host, Riley immediately latched onto Kyle, refusing to lethimgo.
“Hey, you have big ears too,” he said, poking his finger into Kyle’s earcanal.
“Get your finger out of myearhole.”
Now Riley was examining his face up close andpersonal.
“And don’t even think about sticking that finger of yours in mynosehole.”
Sydney broke from the movie to comment on Kyle’s word choices. “Does everything have a holewithyou?”
“Anything that’s importantdoes,yeah.”
Grinning like a fool, Sydney observed Kyle with starry eyes. I was pretty sure her crush on Jake had jumped over to him. She absolutely loved having Kyle around, so he began accompanying us on any outings that required security. That arrangement not only made the kids happy, but Kyleaswell.
Turning Kyle’s face toward him once more, Riley said, “Your nose isbig,too.”
“Only because you’re seven. If you were normal-sized, it would looksmaller.”
“Really, Kyle?” Jake questioned, his brows raised in amusement. “Is that how itworks?”
“Do you see Riley questioning my explanation? No. Not like your whole personal space speech. You’ve got to get down on theirlevel,bro.”
Riley was now busy prying Kyle’s mouth open when I noticed him holdingsomething.
“What’s that in your hand?” Iasked.
“My tooth,” Riley said, totallyunconcerned.
Jake and Kyle both bolted upright as I hurried over to check his mouth. Sure enough, there was a big gaping hole where his tooth used to be, and droplets of blood on Kyle’sshirt.
“You didn’t even tell me one was loose,”Isaid.
“It just got loose when I was eating the Twizzler, so I yankeditout.”
Jake and I both startled at theinformation.
“Didn’t it hurt?” Iasked.
“Nope. They’re just baby teeth. And I get money when the tooth fairycomes.”
“I love this kid,” Kyle said, nodding his approval. “He’s a trippylittledude.”
I stretched my hand out for the tooth and set it in a plastic bag. I wasn’t sure what the protocol was for baby teeth, but I figured it was best to keep it until furthernotice.
Once I’d cleaned Riley up, I plopped down next to Jake, who had taken to watching themovie.
“Look at you all into the movie,” I teased, patting histhigh.
