Also, Cosima seemed dead set on equating “Doctor Eric” (that was so cute, did everyone call him that?) with her papa and her daddy. It was nice, but she didn’t know—
“He really likes you, you know,” Cosima informed her, shifting on the couch to face her and holding Hopscotch against her chest. “We see Doctor Eric all the time and I’ve never seen him with a girl outside of—”
“Cosy.”
There was that warning tone from Hudson again. Outside of what?
Before she could ask, Eric was back, her car key in hand which he held out to Hudson.
“Thanks so much, man.”
“Anything for you, doc,” Hudson said with a clap of his hand to Eric’s shoulder. “Gotta take care of your girl, we get it. We should be back in an hour.”
“Um, Papa said I could go to Sew-a-Stuffie while we're at the mall, so better make it two,” Cosima chirped.
“That okay?” Ian asked. “We can always go to Sew-a-Stuffie some other time if you need to get going.”
Eric looked at her, knowing she’d been the one who was feeling twitchy about her never ending list of things to do. But what was another hour? She would make quesadillas for dinner instead of meatloaf, the boys wouldn’t care. And since she didn’t have a job to go to, she could do laundry tomorrow.
“That’s fine. I need to shower and get ready to go home anyway,” she replied.
Cosima squealed and made Hopscotch clap along with her. Devaney was glad she never had to say no to Cosima; she wasn’t sure she’d be able to.
The other woman leaned over to whisper and Devaney got that light, fun, girlish feeling of passing secrets. She had missed that feeling, didn’t know it was possible to experience it again as a grown-up. And she suspected Cosima had a lot more things to teach her.
“You should definitely be Doctor Eric’s girlfriend if you’re not already. Then we can be friends and you can come over for playdates, and you can meet Sir and Stella the cat. Plus my playroom is the most fun. You have to come see it. Promise?”
“I would really like that,” Devaney told her with a smile, and meant it even if she wasn’t sure it would happen. She didn’t totally understand this relationship with Eric, but she did know the more time she spent in his world the more she wanted to.