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“I did!” Leo grinned, his earlier upset apparently now gone, and ran off out of the room.
London shook her head. “He’s crazy. Missing that last one really upset him, huh?”
“You were watching?” I raised my eyebrows. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Of course I was. There’s water in the fridge if you wanted to put some in the jug for the table.”
Water. I could do that. It was about all I could do, but still. “He’s improving, even just tonight. I’m glad I did this.”
London set plates out on the table. “He looks a bit more confident. That last one was hard, though.”
“It was, but there will always be some that get past him. I have to admit that I’m surprised he got his fingers on it.” I put the jug full of ice water on a mat in the middle of the dining table. “He’ll be fine, though.”
“Looks like you talked him through it.” She smiled at me and reached for the oven gloves.
“I’ll get that.” I darted around and took them from her. “Where do you want this dish?”
“Are you sure?”
“London.”
“On the board in the middle of the table,” she acquiesced, reaching for the bowl of garlic bread instead.
I placed the dish down right as Leo came running back in at one hundred miles an hour.
“Leo. What have I told you about running in the house?” London scolded him.
“Don’t do it,” he muttered in response.
“Exactly.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Please sit down at the table.”
“Can I sit next to Ollie?”
“You can sit wherever you’d like,” she replied, putting the bowl of salad down. “And you will be eating salad before you start filling up on garlic bread.”
“Aww, Momma.”
I grinned. “My mum used to say the same thing to me when we had a roast dinner every Sunday. I’d eat all the potatoes first, so I wasn’t allowed to have any on my plate until I’d eaten at least half my vegetables.”
Leo’s eyes widened. “Is that true?”
I drew a cross over my heart. “One hundred percent.”
London glanced over at me and dipped her head to hide a smile.
Little did she know I was, in fact, telling the truth.
“Oh. Do I have to eat the tomatoes?” Leo peered into the wooden salad bowl. “I don’t like them.”
“I got cherry ones this time. I’d like you to try one, please,” London said with the practiced tone of a woman who’d had this conversation one thousand times before.
“They’re yucky.”
“So are video games, and I assume you’d like to play Mario after dinner, hm?”
Leo’s face fell as he realized what she was saying. He reached into the bowl and plucked a small cherry tomato out between his finger and thumb, peering at it as if it was going to leap up and bite him.
I leaned over and plucked one out of the bowl myself, then bit into it. “Mm, that’s good.”
He frowned at me before he looked back to the tomato and did the same. He wrinkled his face up before he raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh, it’s yummy.”
“There we go, then,” London said, slicing into her food. “So yes, you have to eat tomatoes.”
Leo quite happily spooned salad onto his plate after that.
London caught my eye. “Thank you,” she mouthed.
I grinned and reached for another tomato, then popped it into my mouth.
***
“Thank you,” London said, joining me on the back porch. She passed me a cup of steaming tea with a smile. “You didn’t have to do any of that tonight.”
I took the cup gratefully. My thumbs were killing from playing Mario with Leo for half an hour without a break—I hadn’t gamed in years, but I’d enjoyed it so much I was considering buying myself something to play on. “Do what? Help convince a kid to eat tomatoes?”
“The soccer practice. The tomatoes. The Mario.” She shook her head and sat on the sofa next to me. “I know you said you didn’t, but I’m sure you have much better things to do than amuse my kid all evening.”
I put my tea on the table in front of us and looked out at the back garden. There were at least six footballs in various stages of inflation scattered across the grass, plus a basketball and freestanding hoop with a torn net.
“At the risk of sounding utterly pathetic, I really don’t.” I laughed, resting my arm across the back of the sofa. “It’s nice to do something other than watch TV shows I’ve watched a thousand times, go for a run, or read the always happy news.”
“Oh, come on. You do have friends. There are plenty of things for you to do that don’t involve hanging out with a six-year-old.”
“In my defense, he’s a very cool six-year-old.”
“Oliver, what are you really doing here tonight?”
I held up my hands with a small laugh and turned to face her. “I really am here to help Leo. I know the game and, if he really wanted to, I truly believe he has what it takes to go professional.”
