“What’s wrong?” he asks, and though he’s gentle, it’s obvious he’s not going to let it go until I answer him.
“I guess I thought I would be watching them. But, I get it. We haven’t known each other that long and they’re your—”
“Shut up,” he growls, cupping my face in his hands and bending down until we’re nose to nose. “I totally trust you with them. I just know they can be a handful and if you weren’t interested, I didn’t want you to feel saddled with them.”
“I think I can handle it for a three hour game,” I tell him with a roll of my eyes. “Besides, I like kids.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And those two seem great.”
“I think so.” He pauses, like he’s considering his words. “I was going to send Marta home after the game and take you guys out to dinner. But if you’d like, I can give her the afternoon off.”
“It’s up to you. Whatever—”
“No. It’s up to you. I can tell the kids will be fine either way, so you tell me what you want.”
“I’d like a chance to get to know them, so…”
“Okay, then. I’ll give Marta the afternoon off.”
“While you do that, I’ll go corral the kids.” A glance over at the buffet table tells me that might be harder than it sounds as Brent has created a mountain of tortilla chips on his plate and is getting ready to douse the whole thing with a huge ladle of queso. But the way the chips are sitting guarantees that melted cheese is going to end up all over him and the floor.
“How about a bowl?” I ask, quickly moving up behind him. “For dunking.”
“We checked,” Lucy tells me. “There aren’t any.”
“How about down near the salads.” I walk that way. “Did you check there?”
“No.”
Seconds later I come back with a wide, shallow bowl and hold it out to Brent. He grins at me and mumbles, “Thanks.” Then he fills the thing to the brim with queso.
Hunter laughs when he sees what we’ve been up to. “Queso again?” he asks. “You know there are other things on the buffet to eat.”
“I like queso,” Brent tells him.
“Yeah, I think we all got that.” Hunter bumps knuckles with him, then picks Lucy up and drops a kiss on the top of her head. “Okay, so I’ve got to go throw the ball around the field a little, maybe make a touchdown. You guys good here?”
Lucy looks up at me. “Will you braid my hair?”
“You bet.”
“We’re good, Uncle Hunter. Now go kick some Panther butt!”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” He helps us carry our plates over to an empty table, stopping every few feet to introduce me to someone else. Once we’re all settled, he high-fives the kids before turning to me. “Do I get a good luck kiss?” he asks.
“You get a good luck high five,” I answer, just like the kids. Then I lean forward and whisper in his ear, “But if you win, you can have a congratulatory blow job, so…”
“Oh, I’ll win,” he tells me, taking his high five and then stealing a kiss, too. “And I will hold you to that.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
He grins wickedly. “Not as much as I am.”
And then he’s out the door and I’m left with a room full of very curious people, two adorable children and the biggest bowl of queso I’ve ever seen.
All in all, it could be a lot worse.