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“Ricky?” She brightened up at those words. “How is that adorable boy? I hope you’re not teaching him to be scared of his emotions?”
“I’m not afraid of anything, and I’m teaching Ricky to be a man.” The truth was, I was teaching him to be a kid—something he had enjoyed far too little of in his short life. “Gotta go, Mom. Love you.”
“Fine. Kiss Ricky for me.”
“Sure thing.” I was on the move, stopping at the door to shove my feet into a pair of sneakers, then grab my wallet and keys. I headed out the door, only ten minutes late, but to Ricky that could mean that I was dead on the side of the road or had driven as far away from him as I could. “Shit!”
When I pulled up in front of the Buckle Diner, Ricky was nowhere to be found, and that wasn’t a good sign. The last time I had showed up late, more than a year ago, he’d walked to the next town and then refused to show up for the next twelve weekends. I had to find him. “Where are you kid?”
He wasn’t at the playground with the other kids or the skate park with the older kids who would be on the hunt for trouble when the sun set, which let me relax just a little. I drove around the back of the shops to see if he was dumpster-diving again, and luckily he wasn’t, but he also wasn’t in the bookstore or the electronics shop.
“Hey, Tara, you haven’t seen Ricky today, have you?”
“Oliver, I’m great. Thanks for asking. No, I haven’t seen Ricky since this morning. We had a sausage biscuit together.”
“Thanks.”
“Everything all right?”
“Yeah. I got held up by my Mom and I was late.”
Tara sighed, knowing exactly what that meant to a kid like him. “I’ll give you a call if I see him.”
“Thanks,” I told her and ended the call, still driving when I spotted a familiar head with a big flop of black curls sitting on a picnic blanket with a figure I didn’t recognize.
Parking alongside the curb, I jumped out and ran across the grass. Ricky was a tough kid, but he still possessed the naivete of an eleven-year-old. He trusted too easily. “Ricky! I’ve been looking all over for you, where have you been?”
He looked up and shielded his big brown eyes from the sun, flashing a half-smile my way. “Oh. Hey, Oliver.” Yep, he was mad. Really mad.
“Sorry I was late, but my mom was talking my ear off and I got to the diner as soon as I could. I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a casual drug. “You have your own life.” He turned to the adult I hadn’t paid much attention to with a smile. “Ms. V. asked me to help her finish her lunch ‘cause she packed too much. Girls,” he said, smiling even as he rolled his eyes.
I didn’t have to look at the figure to know who it was, because the moment Ricky said ‘Ms. V.,’ my body was more than aware of her presence. “Ms. V.?”
Eva looked up and removed the Pilgrim Pirates baseball cap that held her thick black hair in place, letting it fall in a curtain around her shoulders. She was dressed casually today in jeans that hit just below the knee and a tank top that showed off all her mouthwatering curves. “How do you know Ricky?”
I arched a brow in her direction and folded my arms across my chest, an expression that tossed the question back at her. “I’m his Big Brother.”
Her gray eyes slid from Ricky’s brown skin and thick black curls to my blond hair and blue eyes. “The familial resemblance is uncanny,” she deadpanned.
“From the program, not my real hermano,” the kid explained with a laugh. “Adults are weird sometimes. It’s cool you were late, Oliver. You usually show up, which is more than most grownups.”
The last thing I wanted was for Eva to witness my humiliation at the hands of an eleven-year-old boy, but they both looked comfortable, like they planned to stay a while. “I told you, my mom wouldn’t stop talking and she made me promise to give you a big fat kiss when I saw you. What was I supposed to do?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know, I don’t got no mom.”
Eva laughed. “You can share mine, she’s always on my case to get married and give her grandkids. You can take some of the heat off me.”
“You trying to steal my Little Brother, Vargas?”
She let out a soft, feminine giggle and looked up at me. “Steal? I’m a much cooler Big Brother than you are. But, if you boys have plans, I won’t be offended.”
Ricky shrugged. “You can stay. If you don’t have plans or anything.”
