Titus listened to them, then focused on Hail again.
“You got skills.”
She smiled.
“Want to spend the night at my house?” he asked.
~~~
“But I don’t wanna go anywhere else! How will Niko find us?” Griffin whined.
“He’ll know where we are and he’ll be relieved that we are sleeping in a nice warm bed instead of on a sofa or a floor,” Maeve said.
“But we don’t even know her!” he insisted, pointing at the blonde haired lady standing right beside his mother. “Is she even nice?”
Alison laughed.
Maeve groaned.
“Tell you what,” Jack said, squatting beside Griffin, “I’ll tell Niko where you are when he gets here. But he might not come over there. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’ll be relieved and just go right to sleep. You see, he knows Alison and he knows how nice she is and how considerate and kind she is, so he won’t worry at all.”
“Oh,” Griffin said. He was clearly not impressed that Niko wouldn’t come looking for them.
“I promise you won’t mind being in my house,” Alison said.
“You got stuff to eat?” Griffin asked.
“I do. And if you want something in particular, I can get that, too,” Alison said.
“You got a pool?” Griffin asked.
“I do not.”
“What about a splash pad?” he asked.
“I don’t have one of those either.”
“You see, Mom? No pool, no splash pad.”
“Griffin, shut it. That’s enough! Go over there and tell Reigna Bonnie thank you and then you tell Alpha Jack thank you, and after that you will tell Alison how grateful you are for a nice, safe, comfortable place to stay as we walk to her house. Got it?!” she snapped out.
Griffin didn’t bother to try to talk her out of it. He knew he’d stepped on her last nerve and pushed her as far as he could. “Yes, ma’am.”
Maeve watched over Griffin as he did what she’d told him to. “I’m sorry, Alison. He doesn’t want to leave the pool and the splash pad and all the kids.”
Alison stood there trying to suppress a grin when he looked back at his mother to see if he really had to leave, or if maybe another chance at begging might win him his desired outcome. “It’s okay. I get it. I wouldn’t want to leave the fun place either. Besides, he’s a little attached to Niko, so that may be part of it, too.”
“Yeah. I don’t know what I’m going to do about that. Niko is obviously not impressed with it. Well, let me rephrase that… he likes Griffin. Me, not so much. I seem to make him nervous.”
“Want to know why?” Vance asked as he walked by on his way to lead the families that had chosen Rance’s house to Rance’s house.
Maeve looked around herself to see if he was speaking to someone else. “You mean me?” she asked.
“Yes, I do. Want to know why Niko flips out when you talk to him?” Vance asked.
“He doesn’t like me?”
Vance laughed. “No, it’s that he likes you too much. And he’s not happy about that.”
