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“I’ll come with you if you want,” she offered. “It’ll be fun! I wonder if the Wellness Retreat is still going on.”
“I’m pretty sure it ended shortly after we left.”
“Damn. I keep thinking that I missed an opportunity to discover my past self. Lately, I’ve been thinking I might have been a flapper. I guess now I’ll never know.”
The server arrived with our appetizers.
“You’d better call Phil back over,” I said.
She eyed me. “Are you going to be reasonable and take the job?”
“I’m going to be reasonable and seriously consider it. I’m definitely not the person he wants for this job if I don’t do my due diligence before accepting.”
She beamed at me, and this time, it felt good.
CHAPTER 17
Bennett
WRINKLING HER NOSE,Sophia surveyed my work. “What’s that supposed to be?”
I stepped back to get a more complete view. “A unicorn.”
My first choice would have been a dragon, but Sophia was into unicorns, so that was what I went with. Paul had a follow-up appointment, which meant my mom was unable to watch Sophia like she normally did, which was how I’d wound up painting a mural of a barely recognizable unicorn on the wall of the Banks Brew Co. Demo for the renovation would start in a few days, so I figured I might as well solidify my status as best uncle ever by letting my niece paint on the walls.
“Are you sure it’s not a narwhal?” she asked.
“Like the fish?”
“It’s not a fish. It’s a whale.” Theduhwas clearly implied.
I shook my head. “See? Here are the legs. And she’s standing in grass, so it’s most definitely not a narwhal.”
“It would be cooler if it was a narwhal.”
Did she just burn me?I stared down at the adorable six-year-old, who wore an innocent expression. “I thought you liked unicorns.”
“Narwhals are the unicorns of the sea, and they’re actually real, so I like them now. Unicorns are for babies.”
Well, shit.I dropped my paint brush in the cup and put my hands on my hips. “What are you painting?”
“This is a tree, and this is a flower, and this is Larry.”
I tilted my head and peered at the brown blob that was supposed to be my dog. “What’s Larry doing?”
“He’s lifting his leg on the flower, but don’t worry. It’s a magic flower, so it won’t die.” She grinned up at me.
I chuckled. “Good idea making the flower magic.” Too bad my backyard didn’t have magic grass. It was littered with dead patches.
Sophia turned back to the wall. “Next, I’m going to do Sadie. She makes you happy, right?”
“Of course she does.”
“Good. I’m painting things that make you happy because Mom says you’re sad.”
I did a double take. “What?”
Sophia continued painting, oblivious to my reaction. “You’re sad because your lady friend left.”
