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“Mix it in with yours and eat it!”
“I don’t like peanut butter stuff!”
It’s my turn to gasp. “Peanut butter and chocolate is, like, the perfect flavor combination!”
She wrinkles her nose as she adds the ice cream to her little cup like I suggested. “No, chocolate and caramel is the best.”
Rae pipes up with, “Peanut butter and jelly is the best to me!”
I point at her as I continue to look at Liv. “I tally that in my favor. Or half-tally, at least.”
Liv gives an unconcerned shrug and starts cleaning off her hand. “All right, but it doesn’t mean you win.”
“How do you figure? Rae and I both agree that peanut butter is a solid half of the perfect flavor combination. We outnumber you.”
“But you and I agree thatchocolateis a solid half of the perfect flavor combination, so we’re actually even.”
Well…ugh, damn, she’s right.
I cross my arms while I try to think of how to counter that, but I come up with nothing off the top of my head.
Even with her eyes still on her hand and not me, she knows she’s got me. A smile spreads across her face.
I try not to smile, too, as I narrow my eyes at her. “I’ll have you know that even though I’m a little stumped right now, I’m going to eventually come up with a way to prove chocolate and peanut butter is the real winner.”
“You can try,” she allows.
Her gaze slides to Rae, and a downright mischievous glint comes into her eyes. The kid is too preoccupied with her ice cream to anticipate the tickle attack Liv mounts on her with the napkin—by the time she’s squealing with laughter and trying to wiggle away, she’s already got several faint ice cream stamps on her arm and neck.
Clapping my hands and grinning now, I say, “There we go! It’s come full-circle!”
“Yes, it has!” Liv agrees.
It’s hard for any of us to cut the messy silliness short, but we manage. We don’t want the employees to have to do a lot of cleaning up after us. I’m honestly surprised at how littlewehave to clean up after us; our fun was more contained than I realized.
Liv and I are talking about it as we prepare to leave.
“I keep checking the floor to make sure I haven’t missed any melted ice cream,” she says as we push our vacant chairs neatly under the table.
“Me, too. I can’t believe—”
“Excuse me,” a lady’s voice cuts in. Upon looking at her, I see she’s an older woman with a happy face and bright eyes. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but I justhaveto let you know before you go!”
I can hear that Liv shares in my slight confusion as she says, “Hello, ma’am. Know what?”
As possibilities flit through my mind, I quickly look around. Rae is right by our table, so she hasn’t disappeared in the last five seconds. No overlooked ice cream is—
“You arejust,” the lady says, “thecutestlittle family I’ve ever seen.”
My confusion spikes as I snap my eyes back to her.
What? We look like afamilyto her?
But when I think about what she must’ve seen—me and the two charming girls having fun with the mildest food fight ever—my confusion turns to amusement, and I have to laugh. There’s no denying that even though this isn’t what she thinks, itisstill a cute picture. I hear Rae giggling, too.
Correcting the woman doesn’t seem like the thing to do since she’s complimenting us and we’ll probably never see her again. So I say, “Hey, thank you! That’s a nice thing to say.”
“Oh, you’re so welcome! Your daughter is the sweetest little thing, and I can really tell you and your wife love one another. It’s such a refreshing…”
