“What?” she asked, suddenly bashful.
“Nothing,” he said, then shook his head. “I just… you’re kind of amazing. Do you know that?”
“Stop,” she said, nudging her shoulder against his.
“Nah,” he said. “I don’t think I’m going to do that. You’rewaytoo cute when you blush for me to stop complimenting you.”
She could feel her cheeks growing even more red at this, but she didn’t feel like hiding.
They made it to the park with only three grumbles from Levi about the temperature, and only four pleas from Benjamin to ditch his gloves. June finally relented when Benjamin needed his hands to climb all over the playground equipment, which he did with the fervor of a kid who had been kept inside by winter weather for way too long.
The ground was dry enough to lay out the picnic blanket that June had packed, and Levi pulled a cooler off his shoulder and began to unpack while Benjamin raced between the different climbers as though he simply could not decide which thing he needed to do first.
“Okay,” Levi said seriously. “I want you to know right now that you cannever, evertell my mama how much of this picnic I bought at the store, okay. She will disown me. I will never be able to return to the South, actually. My grandmama will haunt me?—”
“I get it,” June said, unable to control her laughter any longer. “You’re a total disappointment to an entire culture, but we’ll muddle along anyway.”
He mimed being shot in the heart with an arrow, but he was laughing too.
“I’m just promising you that I do know how to cook,” he swore as he unpacked sandwiches and small containers from the deli section at Country Corner Market. “I just am maybe the tiniest bit out of practice, and then I got caught up in making banana pudding…”
“I promise that I will eat that banana pudding with enough excitement to merit your efforts,” she said, meaning it.
“Oh, I’mnotworried about that,” he said. “Have you had banana pudding? It’s the greatest food on earth, probably. But I made everything sugar-free, so if it tastes weird, that’s not because I am a bad cook.”
“You seem very worried about me thinking you’re a good cook,” she observed. “Do you think this is my criteria for saying yes to a date with you? Because, I have to say… you thinking to make a sugar-free dessert to be safe for Benjamin meanswaymore.”
The whole meal was actually diabetic-friendly, she realized. Yes, there were sandwiches, and bread was something that was more of an ‘in moderation’ food than ‘however much you want’ food for diabetics, but the rest of it was all the kinds of things that she bought to feed Benjamin on a normal day.
But Levi was looking at her as though all this effort was no big deal.
“I just think you’re great, June,” he said, as though it was as simple as that. “I just want to show you that.”
And maybe it was that easy. Itfelteasy, at least for the next little while, as they snacked and chatted and watched Benjamin play. He darted over to eat a bite of food every now and again before running back to his games, and his smile when he found out that he could have some of the dessert Levi had brought practically brought tears to June’s eyes.
They lingered at the park long enough that Benjamin played himself out, something June hadn’t even realized was possible.Eventually though, he retreated to the blanket, curled up next to June, and fell right asleep.
“You might be a sorcerer,” June told Levi. “He wasn’t even a good napper when he was little, let alone now.”
Levi chuckled. He looked fond when he gazed at Benjamin, and June’s heart lurched.
“We should have stuck a pedometer on him before we let him loose,” Levi joked. “I’m crazy curious to see how far he ran during all that. My bet is on, I don’t know, a hundred miles?”
“At least,” June teased back, running her fingers gently through her son’s hair.
There was a comfortable quiet between them for a while, as they all basked in the warm sun that cut through the lingering winter chill.
“You know,” Levi observed after a while, tapping the toe of his boot lightly against the side of June’s sneaker to get her attention without waking Benjamin. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you look so relaxed. Is that okay to say?”
The smile on her face felt contented and calm.
“You know,” she said, still stroking Benjamin’s hair lightly, “Ifeelbetter. I had this moment earlier when everything with Benjamin’s diagnosis still felt so huge, like this obstacle I couldn’t overcome. But then instead of that panic building and staying with me for days, I just breathed through it.” She looked at Levi squarely. He deserved to know how much she meant her next words, especially after she’d pushed him away. “You have helped me with that. Recording that song with you, yeah, but also just… this.”
She waved an arm to encompass their picnic and the quiet time they were enjoying together.
“I will confess that sometimes I still have to pinch myself to ask if it’s all real,” she said with a laugh. “I mean, how is it possible that you really want me to sing with you? Andnot just out of pity? How is it possible that you, with all your handsomeness and talent and cool job, actually likeme, June Caldwell, small town mom?”
Levi’s lips had tipped up when June had complimented him, but that smile disappeared into a more thoughtful look when she admitted her self-doubt.
