A chuckle left me as I looped an arm around the kid’s waist. “I was thinking something more along the lines of ice cream. Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you, Lil’ Dill?”
“Mom says I’m always getting ahead of myself, but I run really fast, just like Ben-Ben is gonna. And I just really wanna go, and we’ve never been, and it looks so super cool. Please, can we go? I got a piggy bank, and it’s almost full. I can give you some dollars.”
Laughter rolled out, and I ruffled his hair. “Maybe another time, Lil’ Dill. Pretty sure your mom wouldn’t be too happy about that idea right now. Besides, we only have an hour. Don’t think we can quite squeeze that in.”
“Ah, man, why’s she always gotta be a funsucker?”
Could feel the force of Benjamin’s smile. “Because we’re tttroublemakers. She’s gotttt to keep us in llline.”
“Troublemakers? You two? I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it, Mr. Mack,” Dillon claimed. “I mean, not bad guy troublemakers. Wait, is that the same thing? Oh man, I hope not. I don’t want to get arrested.”
“So far, I think you’re fine. Just don’t push it,” I teased, and then I pushed to standing, taking Dillon’s hand and winding an arm around Benjamin’s shoulders to lead them out.
We stepped out into the late afternoon, three of us together, walking along like we were a family.
Family.
I gulped around the thought of it. The agony of it.
Something I’d never really had. Something I’d witnessed with Izzy and her parents, so close, but always out of reach.
I got them into the truck that I’d rented while mine was being repaired, and ten minutes later we were standing at the ice cream counter with a slew of flavors beckoning from behind the curved glass.
“Pick your poison,” I said.
“Poison? That sounds like a bad idea. Maybe you’re really the troublemaker.” This from Dillon, except he was grinning up at me with his hand still clinging mine.
Kid razzing me.
My chest tightened, same as my hand did on his. “You have no idea, Lil’ Dill.”
No idea at all.
Wished I could erase it. The bullshit I’d done. The things I’d kept hidden. What still haunted me today.
“Do they have bluuuuberry?” Benjamin tumbled through the question, hobbling on his crutches to the glass, peering down.
I couldn’t do anything but reach out and feather my fingers through his hair that was the same color as mine had been at that age, heart beating overtime at the contact. “Might not be as good as your grandma’s pie, but it looks like they have it.”
“I’ll take bubblegum,” Dillon exclaimed. “Can I have a cone with the chocolate and the sprinkles on it, too?”
Izzy was probably gonna kill me for sugaring them up before I took them to meet her, but I was with Mrs. Lane—if I got the chance to spoil them, you could bet your bottom I was going to do it.
“Sure can. How about you, Big Ben? You want one, too?”
“Cannn I have two scoops?”
I looked at the teenaged girl and gave her our order, paid, and carried our ice cream over to an open table.
They immediately went to town, digging in. I took a bite of my plain vanilla, looking at my son who was lapping at his cone like it was the fountain of life, watching me at the same time, his little brother babbling on, stitching his little spirit to me just as quickly as his brother was.
Impossible but right.
I fought the fear that wanted to climb into the atmosphere, instead smiled and nodded along as Dillon launched into a million questions about what it was like when I was growing up in the olden days.
Apparently the 90s was way back when.
“And my mom was your best friend?” Dillon asked.
“She sure was.”
He scrunched up his nose, wiping some of the ice cream smeared all over his face with the back of his hand. “But she’s a girl.” He said it like it was the weirdest thing.
Funny how I’d once tried to give her the same excuse and she wasn’t having it.
I gave him the same response as she’d given me.
“So? She’s still my best friend.”
“So, you’re friends again?” he pressed.
“I hope so,” I answered, roughness making its way into the words.
“Special friends?” His brow rose in speculation.
“Yeah, special friends,” I admitted carefully.
His brow managed to rise higher. “You mean, the kissin’ kind?”
Shit. Nothing like a kid putting you on the spot.
Rubbing the tension at the back of my neck, I wavered, glancing between the two of them.
Benjamin was studying me with those keen, deep eyes.
Uneasiness twisted through my being, not sure what to say or how Izzy might want me to answer. But the last thing I wanted was to mislead these kids on my intentions.
I nodded slow. “Yeah. The kissing kind. If she wants me to be. Would that be okay with you two?”