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He just sat there for a moment, completely in shock over what had just happened.

Ammo reached for a napkin and was about to tell her off for playing with her food when a giggle escaped her.

For a moment, he wasn’t even sure what that noise was. And then he froze, staring at her as she laughed. She laughed so much that tears dripped down her face, and she had to lean back with her hand on her belly, as though it was hurting her.

Yeah, he hadn’t seen her laugh like this.

It just wasn’t a small, polite laugh. This was a full-on belly laugh. Sure, it was at his expense, but Ammo didn’t care about that. He had plenty of self-esteem.

He’d probably let her do it again, if she’d laugh like that.

Not that he was going to tell her that.

As her laughter died off, he reached down, grabbed the napkin, and wiped his nose clean. Ugh, now it was sticky. He wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t like ice cream.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I really didn’t mean to do that. It wasn’t on purpose.”

He looked over at her to find that she was staring at him guiltily.

“Are you mad at me?” she asked. “I can go get some more napkins and wet them, because a dry napkin probably doesn’t do much to get off the stickiness, uh? Let me go get some more.” She stood.

“Sit,” he barked at her.

She sat down, and the look on her face grew even more tense. Shit, what was he doing? He didn’t mean to scare her. He wasn’t mad at her, but she didn’t know that.

Would Charlie have gotten mad at her if she’d accidentally flung ice cream on his face? From her reaction, he guessed that he might have. Mind you, he didn’t think Charlie would have taken her out for ice cream like this.

Charlie had probably never gone to the doctor with her and held her hand while she got her blood test and lent her his chest to cry on.

Someone like Aimee deserved to be cherished. And she didn’t deserve to have that look of fear and trepidation on her face.

“I’m fine,” he told her. “It was funny.”

She bit her lip. “You don’t look like you thought it was funny. You didn’t smile or anything. I really shouldn’t have laughed, should I? I don’t want you to think I was laughing at you. It was just, well . . .”

“You were laughing at the ice cream on my face,” he replied.

“Yeah, that was it. And honestly, if I’d tried to aim that ice cream at your face, it probably would have landed on my face instead.”

He nodded. He could believe that.

“Are you sure you’re not mad at me?” she asked.

“I’m sure. Did Charlie get mad at you a lot?”

She shrugged. “Not a lot. I mean, for a while there, we went through a bad patch. Things started going downhill after he lost his job. He couldn’t find another one, or at least not one where he felt like he was being paid enough to do it.” She took a mouthful of ice cream and swallowed. “Things got better when Charlie wasn’t around as much to get mad at everything. I’ll give you a guess what he was doing, though.”

Moving on instinct, he reached over and placed his hand on hers. “Charlie was a dick.”

To his surprise, a small smile crossed her face, and the tension seemed to leave her body. “Yeah, Charlie was a dick. You don’t think it’s mean to say that about him now that he’s dead, though?”

“No, I don’t. He was what he was, and we shouldn’t sugarcoat it just because he died. Come on, Little girl. Let’s finish your ice cream, get you cleaned up, and get you home. You need to have a rest.”

She sucked in a breath and stared at him with wide eyes. What was it? Had he said something wrong? He ran his mind over everything he’d just said.

Fuck, he hadn’t even realized. He called her a Little girl. Was that it? Did she object to being called a Little girl?

The way she was staring at him, though, he didn’t think she so much objected as liked what he’d called her.