Exasperated with his brother for making a thing of him taking care of Cresley’s kid, Carson used his phone to find an ice cream shop close by and headed in that direction, hoping Cresley wouldn’t be held for long.Julian was right to question him watching Ty.What the hell did he know about kids, anyway?
Not one thing, but he figured he was about to learn real fast.
Turned out,Ty was a trip, with keen observations about everything they encountered during their outing, from the ridiculous number of steps involved to pay for parking to the guy busking for tips on the street to the ninety-two varieties of ice cream he wanted to sample before he chose his flavor.
Normally, Carson would’ve been annoyed to be spending an afternoon with a kid, but this kid was funny.
“How old of a man are you, anyway?”Carson asked as they sat across from each other and ate their ice cream.
“I’m seven, and I’m just a kid, not a man.”
“Huh, I thought seven was a man these days.”
“You don’t know much about kids, do you?”
“Nope.What should I know?”
“That we’re not men—or women—until we’re eighteen to start with.Weren’t you a kid before you grew up?”
“Yeah, but that was a long time ago.I don’t remember.”
“How old are you that you don’t remember being a kid?”
“I’m thirty-six.”
“That is pretty old.”
“Hey!No, it isn’t.”
His belly laugh cracked Carson up.
“Only old people eat coffee ice cream,” Ty said, wrinkling his cute little nose.
“That is not true.”
“Is too.”
“It’s coffeecrunch, I’ll have you know, and at least I didn’t sample ninety-two flavors before I got boring old strawberry.”
Ty smirked.“Who got the most ice cream?Me or you?”
Carson sat back, eyeing the kid with new respect.“So that’s a racket you’ve pulled before?”
“Maybe.Maybe not.”
“You missed your calling as a con man.”
“Still a kid over here.I’ve got time to become a con man.”
Carson chuckled.The kid was awesome.
“Could I ask you something?”Ty said in a more serious tone.
“Sure.”
“Is my mom in trouble because she hit my dad?”
“You saw that, huh?”
