Page 16 of Love Expert

“A-a bullet?”

“A nerf bullet. Then we shot it and BAM!” He slaps his thigh. “Shot that sucker right out till it wentsplatagainst the wall! Didn’t even hurt or anything. And now, cos I was brave, my dad said the tooth fairy will bring me a dollar.”

“A whole dollar?”They shot it out! With a freakin nerf gun. “Geez, your tooth fairy brings you a whole dollar? Mine used to bring quarters back when I was a kid.”

“‘Flation,” he counters easily. “And the wage gap closed a bit, so now the tooth fairy can afford to spend a little more.”

“Well, of course.”The wage gap closed, my ass.“Are you super excited about the tooth fairy visiting? Do you have to clean the tooth and make it extra shiny before she comes?”

“Aw, nah.” He looks down at that pokey little tooth pinched between his fingers and grins his bloody grin. “My dad said because I work so hard on brushing my teeth every other day, she’ll understand if it’s a bit messy from all the fluff in my pants or whatever. Also, I asked what you were doing.”

“You sure did.” I brush the dirt off my thighs and stretch my back, basking in each little crackle and pop of my spine. “I’m working on my garden. My grandma always loved tending to her flowers when I was little, but I think she must’ve gotten tired in the last couple of years. Now that I live here, I want to make it pretty again.” I tilt my head toward the trays on my left. “I bought a bunch of lavender, since it’s charming, it’s hardy, and it keeps the mosquitoes away in the summer.” And because I know I’m running out of time, I bend forward again, gently roll the basketball off my flowerbed, and resume pulling the old weeds out. “I’m working tonight, which means I only have an hour left till my time is up and I need to have a shower.”

“Can I help?” He drops to his knees on his side of the boundary and digs into the dirt. “I sometimes used to help Mrs. Sava with her flowers.”

“You did?” My lips curl into a smile. “I used to help her, too, back when I was about your age. It’s so much fun, right?”

“Uh-huh. What kinda work do you have to do tonight?”

“Well…” I dump weeds into my bucket of scraps and scoot along to work on the next section. “I’m hosting an event at the bookstore. You know Alana Watkins, right?”

“Yuh!” His bright eyes swing up to mine. “She’s so nice. And her babyis such a cute little fatty.” He giggles. “She has like, eleven chins. Did you count them yet?”

I snort. “Not specifically, no. But I met her. And I met Eliza. She’s your karate teacher, right?”

“Mmhm. She’s super nice, too. She’s very silly, especially when she’s picking on the guys.”

“Yeah?”

“Yuh. Cos she’s smaller than them by half, and she’s annoying like a mosquito sometimes. She picks at them, picks at them, picks at them. Then bam!” He slaps his thigh a second time, dirt flying into the space between us. “Tommy tries to tackle her, but she’s fast, and next thing we know, she’s got him in an arm bar.” His cheeks blaze bright red. “Tommy and Chris have an Eliza.,” he whispers. “I have a Molly. Molly is our mosquito, and sometimes, I try to tackle her. But she’s a better fighter than me, so I always lose.”

“Aw,” I laugh. “That stinks. But I bet Molly works really hard to be good at it, huh? People don’t become really good at things for no reason.”

“Yuh. Like how on your second day here, you weren’t very good at moving heavy things onto the curb for the garbage truck. But then a whole week later, you could Hulk-throw a whole couch from your porch. You worked hard at it.”

“I mean…” I snicker. “I don’t know that I tossed awholecouch. Cushions, maybe. I was getting bored in my own brain, so instead of throwing them normally, I kinda treated them like ninja stars.”

“Is it cos I showed you the karate on your porch?”

“Yup.”

“Jeremy!”

I startle straight and stare across the yard as Billy emerges onto his porch, his eyes scanning his property. It takes only a second for his eyes to lock onto mine and narrow.

Oh boy. Here we go.

“I was gonna invite you over for chocolate cake on the weekend.” Jeremy leans forward, quick-talking as his dad starts down the stairs. “I wanted to, but my dad said no.”

“That’s okay.” I hold his eyes for a beat, then I wink and earn his cute, little gap-toothed smile. “I love to bake anyway, and I made homemade donuts this morning.”

“Really?” His tongue comes out and circles his lips. “Ilovedonuts.”

“What are you doing, Jeremy?” Billy stops behind his son, his hands on his hips, and his glower saved just for me.

Don’t say anything about Aria! No sympathy allowed. He wouldn’t like that.

“Buddy?”