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“Oh, like go to the skate park or play video games.”
“Yes,” Lauren said. “That’s what I meant. What’s your favorite video game?”
Blake wanted to warn her away from this path, because once Tommy got talking about SquareSpaces, he wouldn’t stop. Actuallycouldn’tbe stopped.
“SquareSpaces,” he said.
“Tell me about it,” she said, and Blake wanted to start waving his arms at her.
Tommy started telling her about it, and fifteen minutes later, he knelt next to her in the sand, showing her the live tournaments that got live-streamed all around the world.
Lauren looked like she’d been learning Japanese and would then be expected to speak it fluently, and when the video ended, he said, “So it’s fun.”
“Yes,” she said. “I can see that. You play alone, or you play with a group like those people?”
“Sometimes I coordinate with my friends,” he said. “And we all join the campaign together. But sometimes I just join whoever’s playing online.”
“Sound on,” Blake said, finally joining the conversation. “No headphones when he plays with strangers. I want to hear what everyone’s saying.”
“I have the minor tag, Dad. Everyone knows they have to keep it clean when they play with a minor.”
“Still.” Blake exchanged a glance with Lauren. “You can never be too careful with kids these days.” He thought of the texts Tommy had gotten a few weeks ago. “Did you ever get any more texts from that girl?”
“No,” Tommy said. “And Gwen apologized for giving out my number.”
“That’s good,” Blake said.
Tommy had finished eating while he chatted about SquareSpaces, and Lauren took his trash from him. “I brought chips too,” she said. “And those sour gummy worms.”
Tommy blinked at her. “You like those? Sick.”
She smiled at him and reached into her beach bag. She pulled out the bag of them, ripped it open, and then removed a red and orange gummy worm. It had lots of sour sugar on the outside of it, and she put the whole thing in her mouth.
“Mm,” she said. “Just more for me to have.”
Tommy shook his head, but Blake saw the smile on his son’s face. Lauren had said she didn’t interact with many kids, but she was calm and cool with Tommy. Blake barely knew how to act around teenagers, and he’d known Tommy for every day of his life.
She offered the bag to Blake, and he took it. He too didn’t particularly enjoy this kind of candy. He didn’t really like candy at all, preferring junk food to it ten to one.
“Are these your favorite candy?” He took out a blue and pink one, but the thought of putting in his mouth had his throat closing.
“No,” she said. “My weakness is that of many other women around the world: chocolate.”
“You should go to Ryan’s uncle’s candy shop,” Tommy said. “He makes the best chocolate truffles in the world.”
Blake nodded and casually dropped the sour gummy worm back in the bag. He was not eating that.
“Do they?” Lauren asked.
“They do tours and stuff,” Tommy said. “They’ll show you how to make the truffles. My grandma tried once, and they were good, but they weren’t as smooth as you get at the shop.”
Lauren looked over to Blake, and while he couldn’t see her eyes, he felt the locking, clicking connection between them. “They do tours?”
He grinned, picked up his phone, and started looking how to book a private tour at—“What’s the name of it again, Tommy?”
His son didn’t answer, and Blake stopped trying to remember and looked up. Tommy wasn’t sitting five feet from him anymore, and Blake hadn’t heard him get up or leave. “Where’d he go?”
Lauren giggled and pointed to the right, and it only took Blake half a breath to find Tommy standing with a group of teenagers a couple dozen yards away. He couldn’t determine their ages from this distance, but he didn’t recognize any of them either. Why would he? He didn’t work with teens.
