Page 86 of Employing Patience

She giggles. “I’d kiss them.”

“And if they ran away?”

“Then I’d never talk to them again and find someone else to like. But Mamã says I’m too young to kiss boys.”

“Your mom’s right. Though she should probably go over consent with you too.”

“What’s consent?”

Yeah … this is not my wheelhouse. “Your mãe can have that talk.”

But at the end of the day, Alice is approaching things from a kid’s point of view. A simple one. One where you break down all the what-ifs and forget the consequences and ask yourself, “What do I wanna do?” and right now, I want to run after Joey.

So I do.

I break into a jog, gaining on where they’ve slowed down, and as we pull up beside them, I shoulder check him.

Joey veers off to the side for a fraction of a second before he recorrects and throws his shoulder into mine.

Alice shrieks and kicks her feet out at them, just missing, before Gus throws the branch he’s holding at us.

“You’ve done it now,” Joey warns, tightening his hold on Gus’s legs.

Then they come barreling toward us. We sidestep them and nudge Joey off-balance, but he retaliates by throwing his weight backward and clipping me with Gus’s backpack.

For the rest of the short walk, we attempt to dodge and shove and overtake each other, to the point Alice and Gus are in tears laughing, and the smile across my face feels unbreakable. We’re careful not to be too rough and injure the kids, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about my niblings, it’s that they’re hardy fuckers, and a little thing like a bump or scratch isn’t going to get in the way of them having fun.

I’m almost disappointed to reach the gate and have Alice slide from my back.

Gus turns his tear-streaked, grinning face up at Joey. “Did we win?”

“Yeah, buddy.” He holds up his hand for a high five, which Gus slaps before turning and bolting for the school.

“You didn’t win, we did!” Alice shouts, running after him.

I wave toward where they’ve disappeared. “Okay, bye?”

Joey claps me on the shoulder. “They have a new favorite. Try not to take it so hard.”

Then he turns and goes to cross the road.

“Whoa.” I’m grabbing his arm before I can stop myself. “Where are you going?”

“Ah … home?” His brown eyebrows bunch up in confusion.

“Let’s hang out.”

He stares at me for a second. “I … I can’t.”

“You don’t work until tonight.”

“You know my schedule by heart, huh?” Unfortunately, he doesn’t give me the usual teasing tone that I’m just realizing … I miss.

I still haven’t changed his schedule back from the daily rotation because while he’s getting up at who knows what hour to start at the convenience store, I can’t justify going back to having him work late.

“Only because you were supposed to work today, and you swapped. Again.” And this time, he didn’t bother asking me to do it. Technically, he’s not supposed to. Joey’s following the rules by swapping with the other bartenders instead of asking me to change it, but … I don’t like it.

“Yeah, I have plans today, sorry.”

---