She makes a face. “I don’t want to work on a dating app. That would be a waste of my talent.”
I laugh, genuinely amused. “You don’t pull any punches, do you? This is what I’m talking about. That’s why I like you.”
She studies me for a second. “Okay.”
“Okay, we can go back inside?”
“Okay, I believe you,” she says. “Partially.”
“Only partially?”
“You and I may like each other, but I think you like my dad too. And he likes you. He’s not mean to anyone else.”
Another laugh rips out of me. “Lucky me.”
“He only acts that way because he’s confused. Men get confused, you know. My grandfather doesn’t know about even a fourth of the things that happen in his own house.”
Right now, I’m the one who’s confused. How did an eight-year-old get this wise? And…
I mean, is she right?
I can’t deny there’s a part of me that will always be drawn to Cole Garrison like moths to open flames, those poor, doomed bastards.
“Men aren’t the only ones who get confused,” I mutter, shaking my head slightly. “But I’m…sort of talking to this other guy.”
Except…
I can’t deny that although I enjoy verbally sparring with Hot Rod, he is still a flat bit of text on a phone. Rowan called him imaginary, and in a way he wasn’t wrong. Hot Rod isn’t a living, breathing person to me yet. He’s not a tall, broad man with the kind of smile that could punch a woman in her ovaries.
“If all you’re doing is talking, I don’t see what the problem is,” Jane says primly.
Goddamn.
“Well, let’s get back in there so I can teach you more shi—stuff that will help you avoid the sad fate of working on a dating app.”
She glances through the window in the door and says, “It wasn’t nice of Butterscotch to say those things to Mikey. I think we need to build him up. Dad always gets me a treat when I’m feeling down.”
There’s a warm feeling in my chest as I remember seeing him at the teashop this morning, and my mind gallops further back in time, to that day when he found a crying girl and gave her a slightly warm Crunch bar from his backpack.
“You know, kid, you’re right about that. We should do something for him.”
“Why don’t we invite him to the brewery with us? Adults like beer.”
“Okay, Mensa. It’s a plan.”
“You think I could get into Mensa?” she asks, because of course she knows about smart people clubs.
“I think you’d get in and take over.”
We head back in together, Mikey shooting me a look that says I’m about on par with Butterscotch in his book for abandoning him for so long, and finish up the lesson. As we wrap up and the kids start gathering their things, Jane tells Mikey, “Hey, Holly and I want to invite you to my dad’s brewery with us. We think you need a treat.”
“You’re hanging out at a brewery with a child?” Mikey asks me, his eyes bugging.
It’s a fair question.
I could tell him about the whole computer thing, but the other students are still present, and I seriously don’t want to build all of them computers. So instead, I answer, “Yes. Come with us?”
He lets out a weary sigh. “I suppose I have nothing else to do.”
“You could talk to Miss sixty-eight,” I remind him. “What’s her name?”
“Applejack.”
A laugh snakes out of me. “Well, no one can say you don’t have a type.”
