“No. You can’t put purple and orange together, and look at her hair. She needs to comb it, at least. And Riley, is that your pajama top? Wait – does he have shampoo inhishair?”
“Idon’tknow.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You didn’t help himshower?”
“No. Was Isupposedto?”
“Well, he has shampoo in his hair, so yeah, you probably needed tohelphim.”
Casey got up from her table and shooed the kids back into the bathroom. A few minutes later they came back looking clean and color-coordinated. I wasn’t sure what type of black magic she’d employed, but I wanted someofit.
With a sly smile, Casey grabbed my face in her hand and kissed my lips. “You’re funny. It’s a wonder you make it out the door everyday onyourown.”
“I know. It’s a flippin’ miracle,” I agreed, happy to see her lessstressed.
“Thank you for doing this for me. I really appreciate it.” Casey then leaned in and whispered, “I’ll make it up to youlater.”
I grinned. “I’m going to Chuck E. Cheese’s for you, so yeah, you’dbetter.”
“Chuck E. Cheese’s?” She gasped as if I’d just told her I was taking them for a spin on an alien spacecraft. In hindsight, maybe that would have been easier. “Byyourself?”
“No, I’m bringing Lassen and Vadim, just in case Chuck E. getshandsy.”
Casey shook her head uncertainly. “When I said take them out for a few hours, I assumed you’d start small, like a park or something. Chuck E. Cheese’s is like the big leagues, Jake. Are you sure you know what you’re gettingyourselfinto?”
I shrugged. How hard could it be? “I’ll be fine. Get your work done and take a nap. We’re going to have agreattime.”
I announced the last sentence loud enough for the kids to hear. They yelled theirapproval.
Moments later, Lassen crawled out of his hole. Since the kids’ arrival, he’d been hiding out in the front of the bus as much as possible. He let me know every chance he got how unhappy he was with the current living arrangement. And I’d let him know that I didn’t care what he thought. Lassen was spoiled. He’d had it good for too long. It was time for him to payhisdues.
My driver stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the kids’ excited faces. Lassen’s eyes immediately found mine and they narrowed to angry little slits. Just wait until he figured out where we were going. Those slits would be pointedmissiles.
“You ready?” I asked, in a high-pitched and overly excited voice. The kids ate it up, running and screaming out ofthebus.
Casually, I walked passed Lassen, purposely avoiding the eye daggers he was shooting at me. “Youcoming?”
With a loud, exaggerated huff, Lassen stomped offthebus.
Ihad hopedto surprise my disgruntled driver with our mystery destination, but Riley was enthusiastically belting out a song of his own creation, appropriately titled, “I can’t wait to get to Chuck E. Cheese.” Interestingly enough, he just repeated the chorus over and over. I was going to have to work with him a bit on his songwritingskills.
The scowl on Lassen’s face had not eased one bit the entire car ride. Maybe I thought he’d gradually accept his fate, but by the looks of it, he was going to hate me for a verylongtime.
After pulling into the parking lot, he leaned over and whispered a threat for my ears only. “I won’tforgetthis.”
Walking into the establishment,I immediately understood what Casey meant by calling it the big leagues. This place was teeming not only with sugared-up kids but wildly frustrated adults as well. I glanced at Lassen, who was already holding his hands over his ears. I had to agree – the sound level in Chuck E. Cheese’s was unlike anything I’d experienced before, and I was used to music blasting in my ears on a near daily basis. It was an odd mix of screaming kids, pop music, pinging and binging of hundreds of machines, and the sounds of “Happy Birthday” being sung every few minutes by Chuck E. andfriends.
I grabbed Lassen by the arm to move him along. He’d gone into some freaky survival mode, complete with glazed over eyes and emotional detachment. It was like the lights were on but nobodywashome.
“You all right there, bud?” I asked, patting his back. “I’m going to need you to snap out of this because you and I are about to divide and conquer. Which one do you want, Sydney orRiley?”
“I want togohome.”
“That’s not one of your options. If you don’t choose, I’ll pick oneforyou.”
Sydney and Riley had two totally different approaches to enjoying their day. Syd wanted tickets, lots of tickets. Apparently her strategy was to hoard as many as possible so that she then could trade them in for a toy, which in the end would cost four times what it would have atTarget.
Riley didn’t give a rat’s ass about the tickets. He was all about the games, and this particular place seemed to have hundreds of them to choose from. The minute I stepped foot in the establishment, I knew keeping both kids happy was not possible without a tag team approach, and that’s why I was now giving Lassen theoption.
