She raises a brow at me. “I am?”
“Yep.”
“What am I doing?”
“You’re hanging out with me.” I pinch a piece off the biscuit in her hand and eat it.
She looks at me. “I am?”
“Yep. We have to go work at Lake Fisher.”
Little Robbie sits up taller. “All day?”
“Yep.”
“What about Friday?” Robbie asks her.
“She’s busy that day, too.” I pinch another piece of her biscuit.
“Let me guess.” Robbie glares at me. “With you.”
“Yep.” I grin at him.
“Sorry, Robbie,” she says.
“Maybe another time,” he adds, with hope in his eyes.
“Maybe,” she replies, rocking her head from side to side.
“I’m glad you’re moving back to town,” he tells her with a wink and a squeeze of her knee. She palms his hand and gently but firmly shoves it a little to get it off her knee.
Junior and Barbara-Claire come back just then and Barbara-Claire sees what’s going on. She glances from Evie to me and then to Robbie and back to me. I nod at her, making my eyes go wide. She winks at me and then she says loudly, “Little Robbie, there’s a fight brewing at the snack bar.”
Robbie lets out an exaggerated sigh and says, “An officer’s work is never done.” He stands up. “See you later, Evie.” Then he stomps down the bleacher steps.
“Thank you,” Evie murmurs to Barbara-Claire.
I need to thank her too, because when he reached out and squeezed Evie’s knee, I had a sudden urge to rip his arm off his body and beat him with it.
“So, what are we doing Friday?” Evie asks me. “I don’t remember we had any plans.”
“I don’t know,” I reply with a shrug. “What do you want to do?” I reach to pinch another piece of her biscuit, and she just rolls her eyes and gives it to me and she gets herself another one from the container.
“Well, I had planned to paint that night.”
“Paint what?”
“My house.”
“I’m up for that.” I toss a piece of the biscuit into my mouth.
Her eyebrows shoot up high on her forehead. “You want to help me paint?”
“Sure.” I lean back so my butt falls into the open groove behind the bench. “I can paint.” I nudge Junior with my knee. “You guys want to paint?”
Junior and Barbara-Claire look at one another and shrug, and Junior says, “Sure.”
“There we go.” I dust the biscuit crum