AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hey! What about my money?”
I shut my eyes and count to five. Sweat begins to slide down my neck from my internal temperature spiking. I have absolutely no experience with children besides encountering and avoiding the occasional kid in public. Until Declan and Iris have one of their own, I’m grossly underprepared to deal with any of this.
Just give her the money and go.I check my wallet for singles but come up empty. “Sorry, kiddo, but I don’t have any dollars.”
“How about that?” She points at the stack of hundred-dollar bills with big eyes.
“Do you even know how much these are worth?”
Her blank stare doesn’t give me much to go off.
“Fine. Whatever. Here you go.” I give her one of the bills.
“But you said two bad words.”
“These are worth more than a dollar.” I tap the numbers to emphasize. “That’s a hundred. See?”
Are you really trying to reason with a kid?
Her brows scrunch together as she stares at the bill. “Hold on. Let me count to make sure… One…two…three…” She traces each number in the air like she is writing on an invisible sheet of paper.
For fuck’s sake.At the rate of her counting, I’ll spend the whole morning here.
I grab another hundred and pass it to her. “There.”
She pokes her tongue through the gap where one of her front teeth should be. “Oooh.”
“Bye.” I give her a half-assed salute and resume my walk toward my car.
“Will you play with me?” She follows behind me like a shadow.
“I can’t.”
Almost there.The blurry numbers on my license plate get clearer with each step closer to my car.
She runs to keep up with my long strides. “Why not?”
“I’ve got somewhere to be.”You’re so close.I dig my keys out of my pocket and unlock the door.
Maybe if you throw another hundred on the ground, it will distract her long enough for you to get away.
“Where are you going?”
Anywhere but here is preferable at the moment.“A meeting.”
“Oh.” Her smile falls. “Will you be back?”
“Uhm…maybe?” My skin itches.
“Yay! Next time you will play with me.” Her hands clap.
The kid needs meds or a muzzle. That much is obvious. She reminds me a lot of myself at that age, bouncing with energy and endless rambling. It’s a mystery how my brothers didn’t try to suffocate me in my sleep.
“Sorry, kid. I’m not here to play with you.”
“Oh. But Wyatt plays with me.”
Gravel kicks up underneath my shoes from my sudden stop. “Who?”
