Page 52 of Sweatpants & Sweet Tea

Did it make me a stalker? No.

Or at least, that’s what I was telling myself.

What it did do was allow me to keep an eye on AJ and his friends. My godson hadn’t spoken to the redhead since he’d arrived, but thirty seconds hadn’t gone by without him glancing in her direction. Which is why I’d asked who she was before coughing up the twenty.

“Who?” AJ feigned ignorance.

“Pink shirt.”

Pink Shirt’s ears must have been ringing because she turned and looked at AJ before quickly leaning over to her friend, whispering something, and then giggling.

AJ kept his tone and demeanor casual. “Oh, that’s Kendall. She just moved to town.”

On our ‘date’ Ari, or I guess Ariana, had mentioned that she had a daughter named Kendall. “Kendall French?”

AJ’s head whipped back at me. “Yeah, do you know her?”

“I know, or knew, her mom.”

AJ’s face scrunched up like he’d just sucked on a lemon. “Did you guys…”

“No,” I quickly assured him. “I knew her when I was in elementary school. She left when we were nine. I hadn’t seen her again until the other night.”

“Where did you see her? What did you do? What did you talk about?”

AJ rarely asked me questions about my life. He was a typical preteen who was more interested in sports and video games than he was in getting to know his godfather. He clearly had a thing for this girl.

“At The Opera House. We had dinner. We talked about stuff.”

I hadn’t even told Grandad about Ariana’s offer on the farm. In fact, the only person I had told about it was Daphne, which I didn’t want to read too much into. But there was no way I was going to tell my pseudo-nephew.

“You went on a date with Kendall’smom?!” AJ was clearly horrified at the idea that I might be dating the mother of a girl he liked.

“No. Remember the auction? Kendall’s mom bid on me.”

“That was Kendall’s mom?!” AJ’s eyes widened. “She paid five Gs to go on a date with you?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t like that. She wanted to discuss… a business opportunity.”

“AJ!” Robby, AJ’s friend, shouted his name. “Come on!”

“Here you go.” I handed the kid a twenty so he could go on rides, and he ran off.

I saw the way Ari’s daughter’s face lit up when she saw AJ approach. She smiled and dipped her head down coyly. I was glad to see that the first girl my godson had feelings for seemed to be reciprocated.

As I watched the kids, I wondered what it would be like when it was my son or daughter in line for the Ferris wheel. All mylife, I’d known I wanted a family. A big family. At least four kids. But the older AJ got, the more I wondered if I would be able to handle that. He wasn’t even mine, and I worried about him all the time.

I thought that the hardest years would be when he was a baby, but they weren’t. The older he got, the harder it was. Between social media, drugs, mental health issues, his general safety, school, and his friends—it was exhausting.

The bigger his world got, the more scared I got.

“Hey.” A deep voice interrupted my inner musings.

I lifted my head and found Dawson staring down at me.

“You plan on stalking her on my date, too?”

“I’m here with AJ.” I pointed the beer bottle toward the group of pre-teens who were now standing in line to get tickets for the Ferris wheel.

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