Page 262 of As The Shifter World Turns

“Excellent choice. Follow me and I’ll take you to your seat and get the little one their high chair.” She grabbed some menus and headed into the dining area.

The Grand Combo was basically kids’ food served family style with enough tokens to keep you playing games all afternoon. Toby had been wanting to do it since he first discovered it but we rarely had time together. Sometimes life sucked like that.

We sat down and when the hostess returned with both the highchair and a bucket of tokens, Toby wanted to hit the games. We told her we weren’t quite ready to put in our food order yet and she laughed knowingly and said she’d be back when we were at our table again.

We spent the next hour playing skee ball, dropping coins into a slot with the intention of knocking over a tower until Toby was bored and figured out that tower wasn’t going anywhere, hit all the different creatures in the whack-a-games including the moles, monsters, and birds, and even did something where we had to shoot water into the mouth of a blowfish until it popped.

My theory that we had enough tokens to last all afternoon was proved wrong, but we had fun while they lasted.

“Let’s count our tickets while we wait for lunch.” Toby held up his bucketof tickets. According to Toby, at one point they did away with the tickets, but people got mad and wanted them back and now they are quote “old school.”

We counted and counted, not even halfway done when baskets of chicken fingers and fries, and about six other fried things all arrived along with our drinks.

“We can finish after we eat,” I promised.

“Do you think I have enough to get the remote controlled airplane?” he asked hopefully.

“If not, we can save them for when we come again.”

His face lit up at that.

Charlie reached out for a fry, grumpy it was just out of reach.

“Here you are.” I grabbed one, making sure it wasn’t too hot before handing it to him.

“Hey Martin, room for a few more?” I looked up to see some of the guys from my agency. This was a kids’ place, and they didn’t have any children with them. Also it was kinda early for adults to be eating.

“Really,—”

Toby cut me off. “You’re Dad’s friends.” He smiled at them. “Just make sure you leave enough fries for Charlie. He loves them best.”

I wanted to tell them to go away, but I wasn’t sure how to do that without pissing off everyone there and instead just hoped they left as quickly as they came.

“Love this place,” Javier said. “It makes me feel less like an old man.” And given he was barely old enough to order a beer, I doubted that he felt old.

“You look marvelous,” Pete, one of the other guys said. “Say cheese.”

He snapped the picture before I could tell him not to.

“Not the kids, okay,” I told him.

“Yeah no. Of course not the kids,” he replied a little too quickly.

Fifteen minutes later when Neil showed up, I discovered why.

“I thought we had a “no pictures of the kids” rule for social media.” He was livid and frankly so was I.

“I told you no,” I snapped at Pete, the rest of the guys laughing.

“Yes, Daddy,” he snapped right back.

Neil picked up Charlie. “If you didn’t turn your days with our children into time with your friends, you wouldn’t have had to tell them not to photograph the kids. At least they tagged you so that Archer saw it and I could come get them. Let’s go Toby.”

“Snap.” Pete stood up. “I didn’t peg you as the type to let a nobody treat you like a kid.”

“Let’s go, Pete,” Tyler, who had just been sitting next to him, insisted. “We should go play more games.”

“Yes. Do that.” I too was now out of my seat. They needed to be gone. “And next time you see me out with my family, maybe don’t stop over.” I was sogetting fired over this, especially if someone was catching it on film. Fuck it. Sometimes family came first.

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