Page 40 of Summer Holiday Lifeline

“Shelly, honey, we have to go,” Myles said. “We made a plan with Kreed, and he’s all set up to help us. It would be rude if we don’t show up.”

“Don’t care.” She stomped her foot again, face scrunching in the beginnings of a mutinous pout. “I’m not cooking.”

“Not the point, sweetheart,” Myles said.

“Come on, kiddo. Let’s get your crayons picked up to start with,” Jet suggested, taking her shoulder and gently turning her.

Steven touched Myles’s arm, getting his attention and nodding his head towards the front of the store. Myles followed him away from where Jet was having some slight success in getting her to tidy her supplies.

“I don’t want to say anything in front of her so I don’t undermine anything, but she’s welcome to stay if you want. She’ll be out from underfoot in the kitchen, and she’s no trouble here.”

“Until she is,” Myles warned. “She can be a handful when she gets something into her head.”

Steven quirked a delicately lopsided smile that made Myles want to touch the corner of it and brush his hair out of the way to see if it reached his eyes. “I’m familiar with tantrums. I can handle it, and I know where you are if needed.”

“I can’t ask you to babysit just so I can indulge Jet. He’s a grown kid. He’ll understand.”

“You didn’t ask,” Steven pointed out, “and some one-on-one with Jet is maybe exactly what you both need. You can couch it that way to Shelly. She should know she has to share you with her brother. If you let her become the centre of everything, you’re the one who will end up trapped. Nip it now. Before she gets a taste for control.”

Myles considered his advice. He had experience Myles didn’t have. When he glanced over to see Jet chewing on his lower lip as he cajoled Shelly to do what was being asked of her, he saw the frustration simmering in his eyes, in the one tight fist he held rigid at his side where she couldn’t see it.

The fact she was petulantly dropping the crayons into their tub told him she wasn’t all that interested in colouring anymore. She was insisting on staying because it was contrary to what they had told her to do.

“Hey,” he called over to them. “New plan.”

They both looked at him, Shelly with a glimmer of triumph, Jet glowering.

“Shelly, Jet asked me to go do something with him, and that’s what he and I are going to do.”

Jet’s glower receded the barest amount.

Shelly jumped to her feet, all smiles and eagerness. “I can come too.” It wasn’t a question, but a declaration, as though she knew he would agree.

When had she figured out his buttons and learned how to push them without his noticing? If Steven hadn’t just pointed it out to him, he would have allowed her to railroad him that easily.

“No.” Myles handed the dog to Steven and went over to pick her up. “You’re staying here with Mr. Steven. He’s going to take care of you, and you are going to do as he says like a good girl, until Jet or I come to collect you. Understood?”

She crossed her arms, leaning back precariously in his arms. “I can come,” she insisted.

“No, you can’t. This is Jet and me time. I’ll have something fun to do with you another time, but Jet has done a lot of stuff with you already, and it’s his turn for some Jet time.”

“But I⁠—”

“It isn’t always Shelly time,” Myles said. “I’m not going to stand here arguing.” He hugged her tight and kissed her hair, then set her on her feet. “If you’re good, and Mr. Steven will tell me if you are or not, we’ll make you something yummy for supper.”

“You don’t make yummy food,” she protested. She wasn’t wrong.

“That’s why I have to go learn. Jet too.” He led her over to Steven, who held out a hand to her.

“Come on,” Steven said. “You, MJ and I are going to have a nice, quiet afternoon. You can help me look through some dusty old boxes of kids’ books.”

“What’s MJ going to do?”

“Probably chew on his new butterfly and look bad-ass in his new coat.”

“Can we give him a mohawk? Wait, we don’t have food for him. Hey. The kids’ books, are they any good?”

“You sure about this?” Myles asked.