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"Denise is crying, and she won't talk to me. Says she needs a woman to help her. And the caregiver can't come for an hour. She's in the bathroom with the door locked. I don't know what to do. Could you come and talk to her?"
"Of course, I'll come." She turned back to him. "The cupcakes need to come out of the oven in like seven minutes. Could you get them when the buzzer goes off?"
"Sure."
"Hopefully, I won't be too long." She hesitated. "I can take Leo with me."
"Don't be ridiculous. He's fine here. Go."
"Thanks." She grabbed her coat off a nearby hook and went out the door.
"Where's Mommy going?" Leo asked.
"To see your neighbor." He squatted down next to him. "What are you playing?"
"Trucks? Do you want to play?"
"Absolutely," he said, sitting down on the floor. As Leo explained the game to him, which in typical Leo fashion had all kinds of rules and twists and turns, he marveled at the kid's imagination. Leo could build an entire world in his head, which reminded him of his dad, who always had a story going on.
They'd barely started playing when the buzzer went off. He jumped up to check on the cupcakes. They looked okay to him, but he wasn't sure how to tell if they were done. He looked at Leo, who was peering into the lower oven along with him.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"Mommy puts a stick in them."
"A stick, huh?" He opened a few cupboards and found a box of toothpicks. That should work. He opened the oven and stuck one in the middle of the cake, and it came out clean.
"That means it's good," Leo said.
"I'm glad you're here." He pulled the cupcakes out of the oven and set them on top of the stove.
"They have to get cold before we can put frosting on them," Leo said, dispensing more valuable information.
"Got it. Your mom should be back by then." He paused as his phone buzzed with a text from Chloe. She was probably going to be another half-hour. She needed to wait with Denise until the caregiver arrived. She wanted to know if he could feed Leo. She had half his plate made up, and he just needed to grab the chicken nuggets from the top oven for Leo. He could pull out the enchiladas, too, and eat without her. He could see the stress in her words, so he immediately texted back that he would take care of everything and not to worry. Then he got to work on dinner.
Within minutes, he had Leo's food ready to go. He took the enchiladas out of the oven as well and covered them with foil. The toppings were in bowls on the counter, so he put them back in the refrigerator to stay cold. Then he sat down with Leo while he ate his dinner.
Leo kept the conversation going with little help from him, talking about anything and everything, moving from one topic to the next without much of a segue, but he was mostly able to keep up with him.
"Are you Mommy's boyfriend?" Leo asked suddenly.
"Uh," he was surprised by the question. "Why would you ask that?"
"Joey told me that his mommy said you were my mommy's boyfriend."
He had no idea who Joey or his mom was. He also wasn't sure how to answer the question.
"So, are you?" Leo asked.
"You should finish eating."
"If you're my mom's boyfriend, then can you live with us?"
"You know what? I think it's time to frost the cupcakes. Why don't you eat those last few bites, and we can do that?"
"We have to decorate them with sprinkles, too," Leo said, as he popped another chicken nugget into his mouth. "Mommy got pink, orange, and blue."
"Got it. I should probably look for the sprinkles." He got to his feet, if for no other reason than to shut down the interrogation. He hadn't been grilled by a four-year-old before, and Leo's questions had been unsettling. They made him realize that gossip was going around town and was getting to Leo. Chloe wouldn't like that, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it, either.
