Page 47 of Small Town CEO Grump

“How about we sit here under the tree and just chat for a bit?” I asked.

“Okay, yeah! That sounds like a really good idea,” Tyler said

I had a blanket in my backpack, and I set it out underneath the big tree. We both sat down, leaned against the trunk of the tree, and looked around.

“This is really cool,” Tyler said. “I like today.”

“I do too,” I said. “I really like today. I always love it when we get to just hang out, but today has just been extra fun.”

“After we leave the park, can we go and get ice cream?” he asked, sitting up straight.

I laughed. It was our tradition to get ice cream at the end of every fun day, but it was also a tradition for him to ask if we could get ice cream. I loved the expression on his face when he asked, because he knew what the answer was going to be.

“Of course we can,” I said.

“Good!” Tyler said, once again leaning back against the tree.

“So can I ask you a question?” I hadn’t been exactly sure how to start the conversation, but I decided I was just going to go with it and see what happened.

“Of course you can ask me a question,” Tyler said. “You’re my mom so you can do whatever you want.”

I laughed. As he was getting older he was getting more confident, and I loved it. He was developing a sarcastic sense of humor, and I had a feeling that when he was a teenager he was definitely going to keep me on my toes. I was looking forward to every minute of it.

“Okay, so then what do you think of Ryan?”

“What do I think?” Tyler asked. “What do you mean? Like as a coach? Or what do you mean?”

“Anything,” I said. “Whatever comes to mind. I want to know what you think about him.”

“Well,” Tyler began, “I think he’s really nice. I think he’s such a good baseball player, and he’s a really good teacher. He has helped me learn a whole lot about pitching. I like him when he helps coach our team, too, because he’s a really good coach. I wish he was our coach all the time because he’s so good, but I know that he works with the high school now and so he can’t be there all the time. But I wish he was.”

“Wow,” I said, surprised by how much Tyler had to say about him. “So you like him.”

Tyler nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, he is cool. Like he’s not as nice to us as Coach Kevin is, but he’s not mean to us either. He’s just kind of tough on us, but I think that’s really good because it means that he wants us to be better. But then when we’re not playing, he’s always just so nice. So I think he’s really cool. I see other coaches who aren’t very nice to their players, and then when they are not on the field and just in the parking lot and stuff they still aren’t nice. But Ryan is really nice when he’s not on the field. And like I said, it’s not like he’s mean to us on the field, he’s just strict. But it’s good.”

“I am happy to hear that,” I said.

I felt nervous after that, because I didn’t know how to approach the next subject. Thankfully, I didn’t have to.

“Why?" he asked, his voice teasing. “Do you have a crush on him or something?”

“What on Earth?” I asked. “Where is that coming from?”

Tyler laughed.

“One of the older guys on the team said that he thought that you had a crush on Ryan. He said that you smiled at Ryan one time and it looked like the way that girls smile at boys that they have crushes on.”

I felt myself blush, and I realized that this was one of the negative side effects of having Ryan play on a team with older boys. He was going to be exposed to things earlier than he normally would have been.

“Oh my,” I said. “One of the boys said that?”

“Yeah,” Tyler said.

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.

Tyler shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s okay. It didn’t make me mad or anything. I didn’t even answer him. But then a whole bunch of the boys said that they think that Ryan has a crush on you.”

---