Mistletoe Baby (Crescent Cove 9.50)

“Almost ten.”

“Damn.”

“You said a swear.”

I cringed. “I did.” I pulled out my wallet and withdrew a dollar. “Swear jar?”

She snatched it. “Sounds good to me.”

I was pretty sure her pocket was the swear jar, but I shrugged and looked down at my own paper. My superhero had a scrappy vibe that probably had more to do with the kid who had been amusing me for the last two hours than any talent of mine.

I showed her my sketch.

Her eyes widened, and she snatched the pad out of my hand. “Cool!”

“Guess we’ll have to call it a draw then.”

“Oh, mine’s still better. But this is awesome. Imma call her Ruby.”

I shook my h

ead. Oh, to have the self-esteem of an almost ten-year-old. “And why is her name Ruby?”

She shrugged and ripped off the page before handing me back the sketch pad. Then she handed over her drawing. “Whatcha gonna call mine?”

I glanced down at her surprisingly detailed dog with wings. “Looks like a Jersey to me. Lots of attitude.”

“My friend Jessie is from there. Definitely lots of attitude. Macy says she’s a bad influence.” Her voice dropped to a stage whisper. “I think she likes her though.”

“Your…Macy, is pretty interesting herself.”

“She’s cool. She married my dad, and now I have a little brother. So, she’s like my bonus mom. You should go to The Haunt. If you’re not scared anyway.”

“The place next door?”

“Yep. There’s a life-size Michael Myers in there. And Freddy and Jason. There’s even a Swamp Thing. Macy let me put Santa hats on them.”

Her thought process was staggering. Then again, when it came to ‘kids’, the ones in my purview at the community college were mostly advanced teens, and they were still as random as their thought processes.

“Anyway. Thanks for drawing with me. It was fun. Way funner—”

“More fun.”

“Right. That’s what I said.”

I rolled my bottom lip behind my teeth so I didn’t laugh. She was something else.

“Way better than Grumps. He can’t even handle a crayon.”

“Well, that’s high praise then.”

“Not really.”

I shook my head and collapsed into the couch. “You’re tough, kid.”

“Yeah, that’s what my dad says too. Anyway, I really like your stuff. You can come back tomorrow if you want.”

“I can, huh?” I crossed my arms over my sketch pad on my belly.