Saying thank you was not a huge deal.
Molly had, in fact, thanked Gavin when he’d shown up at the reception with her dried-out son.
That’s it. Not a big deal at all. She’d said it.
But she should probably stop to get him a fruit bouquet to show her thanks and relieve the nagging itch in her brain telling her she needed to step it up in the gratitude department.
Her sedan made an odd crunching sound from behind the dashboard, but it made sounds all the time. This was nothing new. She’d decided not to buy a new car, instead socking money away so she could put a nice down payment on a house of her own. Nearly enough was saved up now that she would be able to start house hunting soon. Soon-ish. Soon being a relative term instead of concrete.
“Is it supposed to sound like that?” Brady asked from the backseat, where he sat with Kellan and Ollie.
“It’s normal,” she assured him. In fact, it probably wasn’t normal.
She smacked her steering wheel. Not so hard that she caused any damage, but enough to make the sound stop.
“Can we talk about it yet?” Ollie asked.
“Soon,” Molly said. Relative terms came in handy for motherhood as well as homebuying. Besides, once they dropped off the other kids, she had a little news for her son.
Rachel was on her two-week honeymoon. As part of her Gavin gratitude package, Molly had offered to take all the boys out for a fast-food hamburger dinner. Now she was returning them to their dad’s house while contemplating fruit bouquets and stuntman camp.
“Stunt camp is all he thinks about.” Kellan gave a heavy-duty eye roll and flopped back against the seat.
Ollie was definitely on a roll with nagging about the Hollywood Stuntman Summer Camp. She’d crunched the numbers and, actually, she could swing this. Especially if his dad paid his child support on time for the next three months.
“You always say soon,” Ollie retorted, watching the world pass by outside the window. “Soon,” he said, mimicking her tone.
“I always mean it, too,” Molly said with a quick glance in the rearview mirror.
Then she eyed the temperature gauge next to the speedometer. The car had been creeping into overheating lately, but as long as she managed the heat level and pulled over before it hit red, everything worked fine.
Fine being another broad, relative term and not so much a specific one.
“This is important to me,” Ollie said. He crossed his little arms over his chest. “Do you even care what I want?”
That’s when her heart stalled.
“I know stunt school is important to you…” She did. It was the only thing he’d expressed a load of interest in, ever. Which was why she would do everything in her power to make it happen. But she didn’t want to get his hopes up before she knew if he’d even been accepted.
“I want to learn to be safe when I try jumps and stuff,” Ollie said, going right for her motherly jugular. “That’s what the website said they do. They teach students to stunt safely. Don’t you want me to be safe?”
How was she supposed to argue with that?
“Ollie?” she said, ready to make the constant persistence stop.
“What?” He practically huffed out the word.
“I already turned in your application this morning.”
That got her the biggest toothy grin she could’ve ever dreamed of and a whoop from Kellan. Even Brady was all smiles.
“You’re the best mom, ever,” Ollie said, totally changing his tune from before.
She did an internal eye roll since she was driving and it was probably dangerous to actually roll them.
“There’s no guarantee.” She turned down the street that led to Gavin’s McMansion. “We have to wait for admissions to tell us yes or no.”
The entire neighborhood was lined with oversized monstrosities. Gavin’s home wasn’t in-your-face huge, but it wasn’t small either. Not like her comfy little duplex that allowed her to save up for a home purchase.
