“Violet and Hollie. They’re my best friends.”
“That’s cool. I don’t have a best friend.”
“Well, you’re pretty new here, I’m sure you’ll get one.” He just shrugs at me and picks the pepperoni off the piece of pizza on his plate. He seems a little upset, so I try to steer the conversation back to safer topics. “You didn’t tell me how old you are.”
“Five,” he says, holding up a greasy hand with all five fingers spread wide for me. “How old are you?”
“I’m twenty-two.”
“Wow, that’s old.” He says it like this is a grave concern for him and I can’t help but laugh, especially since his Dad has to be ten years older than me.
“You think that’s old? Well, I’ll tell you a secret. I’m going to be twenty-three on Saturday.”
Oliver’s eyes get impossibly big like he just can’t believe it and that causes my smile to widen. In fact, I’ve been doing a whole lot of smiling with him tonight. “Are you going to have a party?” he asks.
“I sure am.”
“Can I come?”
“It’s actually going to be a super boring grown up party. There’ll be lots of adults and won’t even be any kids to play with. Sounds boring, doesn’t it?” I don’t want him to think that he’s missing out on something and there’s no way I can actually invite him. I have a feeling that even though Dad is letting me throw it at his house, it’s going to be a booze fueled mess of epic proportions.
“If it’s a grown-up party, are you going to invite my Dad?”
There’s no way in hell I’m inviting Carson for several reasons. The first being, if he didn’t like how I handled myself last night I can only imagine how he would flip out if he saw me drunk off my ass, which I very much plan on being. The second reason is that I don’t want him around my friends. Specifically, the female ones. Some of those girls are sharks. One look at the blondhaired, green eyed, toned dream boat and they would be all over him. It’s not that I’m jealous, I’m just looking out for him.
Shut up, it’s true. Kind of.
“I think he’s probably working, but I’ll check with him,” I say to appease him. Gathering up our plates I carry them to the sink. I look at the box with the leftover pizza and briefly consider hiding it so Carson thinks he got that disgusting pea and macadamia burrito.
Fuck it.I grab the whole thing and shove it into the fridge. If he’s hungry when he gets home at there will be leftovers for him. Checking my phone, I realize there’s at least another hour until Oliver has to start his bedtime routine. “So, what do you want to do now?” I ask, hoping he has some idea.
“Can we watch a movie?”
“Sure.” A movie I can do. Sitting and relaxing sounds like a great idea. This is a kid after my own heart. “Do you know what you want to watch?”
“Ratooey.” What the fuck is Ratooey? It’s not like I’m up to date on the latest kid movies.
“Okay, Ratooey it is. Why don’t you sit on the couch, and I’ll pull up the movie.” I don’t see any DVDs lined up on the entertainment unit underneath the large television, so I assume he streams everything. I flick on the TV and stand in front of it, looking at all the different streaming services Carson subscribes to. “If I were a kids movie where would I be?” I mutter under my breath. I start flipping through Netflix, but when I finally find the kids section I can’t find anything called Ratooey.
“Bianca! Bianca! Bianca!” I glance back and see him jumping on the couch.
“Oliver, just give me a second to find the movie, okay? Please don’t jump on the couch.” He plops down on his butt, and I go back to scanning the movies. It looks like Netflix is a bust so I move on to the next one.
“Did you find it, Bianca?”
“Not yet.”
It doesn’t even take twenty seconds before he’s on me again. “Did you find it now?”
I take a deep breath. “Not yet, Oliver.” I try to not let the irritation seep into my voice but I’m not sure I’m doing a good job of it.Where the fuck is this movie?
“Maybe we should watch something else.”
“No! I wanna watch Ratooey!”
I let out a full-on sigh of frustration and move to the next streaming service. Why the hell are there so many of these things?
I feel something hit my calf and ignore it until there’s another little nudge against my leg. I look down and see two toy cars laying on the floor next to me. I close my eyes for a second, trying to keep my cool. I think I’ve got myself under control until I hear him start calling out again. “Bianca! Bianca! Bianca!”