He finally returned her look, but there was a blandness to it that told her she was about to be avoided.
Gritting her teeth, she grumbled, “This is hardly talk for the table.”
“Why not, mommy?” Erin said, carefully picking up a piece of chicken and nibbling on the crust to reveal the white, tender flesh beneath. “I like Josh. I like him being here. He makes you smile.”
Her eyes widened—Erin really thought that? Loathe to contradict him, even if Josh did grin at her son’s retort, she grumbled, “Can I help being a smiley person?”
Erin giggled. “You really are, mommy. I see you smile all the time now.”
‘Now’ being the operative word, she figured, but refused to let that darken her mood. She was contemplating the past too much, and thank God, it was history.
It was down to her to make their future right. To make it wholesome and filled with love.
Yes, that’s what she had to focus on.
“I like to hear that,” Josh said with a smile of his own. “But I want to be with you all more. You don’t mind sharing your mommy, do you?”
Erin’s eyes rounded. “Sharing?”
She bit back a grin as she stared down at her plate. “Sharing’s a dirty word at the moment, isn’t it, Erin?”
He blinked. “Dirty word?”
Josh snorted. “Why is it?”
“I wanted him to go to preschool last autumn. Somebody didn’t approve. But I knew it would start this. Erin has only child syndrome.”
“What’s a syndrome, mommy?”
“It’s what you have, sugarplum. It means that you’re on the way to being a spoiled monkey if I don’t watch it.”
“I’m not a monkey,” Erin said with another giggle. “I’m a little boy.”
“Little boys turn into monkeys if they don’t listen to their mommies, isn’t that right, Josh?” She shot him a look, the cast to the glance stern—she was making a point and being facetious at the same time.
The twitch of his lips was proof that she’d scored the hit. “She’s right, Erin. Mommies usually are though. When little boys don’t do as they’re told, they turn into monkeys. Are there more girls than boys in your group?”
Erin squinted a little then held up his hand and counted on his starfish-like fingers. She loved his hands. They were so little, and his nails were so perfect—in a few years, that would change. Her cousins had broken a few of theirs by the time they’d hit nine! “Yes! There are more girls. They smell and Robbie says they have cooties, but I don’t know what they are.”
She’d hoped cooties were away down the line.
“I thought as much,” Josh said, his tone somber. “When a boy turns into a monkey, there’s fewer left to attend the group. That’s why there are more girls.”
“Aren’t girls ever spoiled?” Erin demanded, his eyes rounder than ever at this turnabout.
She probably shouldn’t let the story go too far, but she was enjoying Josh’s playful side too much to chide him. Truth was, Erin was getting spoiled. She was limiting him in some ways, but sometimes it felt like for every step forward she took, Janice helped drag him back a whole yard on their rare visits where she showered him with gifts and catered to his every whim.
“Girls are spoiled, but they don’t turn into monkeys. That’s how they get cooties.”
Samantha cleared her throat. “Cooties and monkeys really aren’t talk for the dining table. Eat your meals, both of you.”
There was a sparkle in Josh’s eye when their gazes clashed and held that, she’d admit, bewildered her.
She wasn’t sure where it came from, her response to it and his reaction in the first place, but she’d never seen it before. Had never seen this playful side either.
When he’d hung out with Jamie in the past, the two of them hadn’t postured as much as she’d have imagined two guys with their backgrounds doing. But they’d usually messed with each other as guys did. Nothing unusual in it, but they’d always been pretty harsh with each other. There’d never been the opportunity to see this softer, gentler side she guessed.
Erin had been too young to really do much interacting when Josh had hung out with Jamie in the past. He was only now starting to talk more anyway…