"Yes, sir," Rico told him and gave him a grin.
Though Mitch gave him a stern look, Rico could tell that he liked to see his kid having fun. From what Rico saw, the man could use some fun in his life too. But if he was straight, then Rico wasn't the man for the job.
"Light bulbs?" he said when he saw Mitch get a pack of them. "I'll get some too. Grandma can use them. You saw the million Tiffany lamps she has strewn everywhere. Half of them have burnt out bulbs. You need anything, Sammy?"
She wanted quite a few things, but Mitch shook his head at all of them. But he did get some materials to build a screen to keep the kittens from going everywhere.
Arriving at the house, Sammy ran straight to the kittens to greet and console them for being lonely. First thing Rico and Mitch had to do was make her a toy fishing pole. There were plenty of sticks around and they hung a curtain tie with a tassel from the stick. Grandma wanted the curtains gone anyway, and the kittens were batting at that thing like crazy.
Then Rico and Mitch got down to some real work. Today Rico was holding the boards Mitch needed to cut to fix the rest of the porch.
"Letting you have so much time off from the café isn't a problem?" Mitch asked.
"Grandma has two high school kids working for her, and they get extra hours over the summer. And Magda grabs all the extra work she can. Then there is Sam, Grandma's darling boy."
"Her darling boy?" Mitch said noticing Rico's jealous tone.
"He's the perfect grandson she never had."
"You don't seem so bad. You and your grandma have a... unique relationship," Mitch said instead of what he was really thinking.
"She's the 'unique' one," Rico said. "I'm just trying to hold my own. And I don't really mind if she adopts Sam. He's a sweet guy."
"So opposites attract, I guess," Mitch taunted him.
"I'm damn sweet too, and I already told you I'm not attracted to him," Rico reminded him.
"He's not your type?" Mitch questioned him.
"You need to know my type for some reason?" Rico asked him pointedly.
"No," Mitch claimed and got busy so he wouldn't have to meet Rico's challenging stare.
After unsuccessfully trying to catch Mitch's eye, Rico looked up and saw a car pull into the driveway. At first he didn't know whose car it was then two redheads stepped out. That's when Rico remembered that Lara threatened that she would stop by with her daughter, Gloria, who was maybe a year older than Sammy.
Lara sauntered over to Rico and Mitch while her daughter yelled, "I'm gonna go look for the kittens, Momma. I'm gonna hug 'em." And she ran off.
"Be careful out there," Lara called after her then she stopped to greet Rico and Mitch. "Hi there. I'm Lara Salinger. Rico here said I should stop by. And that little screaming terror, who just ran off, is Gloria. Wyatt's boys told her about the kittens, and she went crazy."
"Hi, I'm Mitch McEvers," he said as he stood up and took off his work glove to shake hands with her.
Lara smiled at him for a long moment then looked around. "So you're fixing up this place. I almost forgot it was here," she said then Sammy and Gloria ran over, each one of them carrying a kitten in their arms.
"Look, Momma!" Gloria yelled.
"They're redheads like you guys," Rico realized.
"They are," Gloria said, delighted.
"This is Sammy, Mitch's daughter," Rico said. "And this is Gloria's mom, Lara."
"Nice of you to share your kittens with Gloria," Lara told her.
"You want to hold Natalie?" Sammy said, offering the kitten to Lara.
"Sure would," Lara said, taking her. "Natalie huh. I'm gonna call her Nat Nat." She nuzzled the kitten, but Sammy objected to the renaming.
"Nooo. Natalie," Sammy told her.
