Page 61 of Something New

"Good. You should. She loves you already."

"How?"

"Those songs. She couldn’t leave Ethan alone about it. She loved that he knew so many songs. She sat there and did that whole, 'mack, mack, mack dressed in black, black, black' hand clapping thing with him. She couldn't believe he knew it, with the motions. Then mom started telling her about you, and showing her your work. She really does want you to call her."

"She knew that song?"

He nodded. "She knew the whole bit about asking the 'mother, mother, mother for fifty cents' and everything."

"Oh, I like this lady," I said.

"Yeah."

"She did the whole song with E?"

"Yes, and he was so proud that he knew it. My mom was completely amazed. She had never even heard of that song—she had no idea E knew it."

I grinned and shook my head. "I just taught that to him the other day."

"Well, he knew it, and they were both just rattling it off like they were best friends."

I laughed.

"Thank you," he said, his expression sincere.

"For teaching him those songs? It's my pleasure."

"No, not just that… it does something for me that I can't quite explain. He's got women in his life, and they all teach him stuff, but it's my mom and sisters, and we kind of all know the same stuff." He shrugged. "I don't know. It's just neat to have someone pouring into him and teaching him new things… like a mom would or whatever. It makes me proud of him, to see him grow and learn new things, and I don't know… thank you… thank you for taking the time to teach him stuff."

My eyes stung with tears and became blurry. I wanted the responsibility of being a mom to E, and I deeply hoped John-Michael saw me as worthy. I wanted to be worthy.

"You're welcome," I said. "I love him. And I don't want you to think that I'm going to be running off and getting us into predicaments like this," I said. "I know it's not good for him to see you have to come here after me and miss his trick-or-treating. I want you to know I regret getting myself into this. I'm not going to take jobs like this again."

"You're done with vampires?" he asked, smiling sweetly.

I let out a little laugh as I took a sip of coffee. "Yeah, I'm sticking to alive guys."

"Specifically to me?" he asked, sitting back in the booth and looking like a giant hunk of gorgeousness.

"You and one other guy."

"Who?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

He was irresistible.

"E."

"Oh, me and E? Yeah, you can stick to us."

"I miss him," I said. "You need to send me those pictures of him as Mario."

He nodded. "I'll text them to you."

"John-Michael?"

"Yes?"

"When we get back to the hotel, can we get cleaned up and then snuggle up on the couch to watch a movie?"

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