Page 88 of Twisted Trust
“No!” Scott giggles, kicking his legs. “It’s my teacher!”
“Your current teacher?” His home-school tutor looks nothing like this, but I won’t judge if this is how he sees her.
“No! My old teacher. She was nice but her teeth were so orange and she was always so stinky.” His face wrinkles and he clutches tighter at the bear under his arm.
“Hmm.” Chip puts on an exaggerated show of examining both pieces of art, humming and tsking as he changes angle. It goes on for so long that Scott gets the giggles until Chip finally sighs and stands straight.
“I’m sorry, Levi. The portrait of the teacher wins.”
“Yay!” Scott cheers and throws his arms up, which causes his bear to fall. He immediately lunges to catch it and my arm around his waist is the only thing preventing him from plummeting to the floor. He seems extra delighted at being hauled upright with his bear in his hands. “I win!”
“You do!” I cheer with him while my heart pounds anxiously. He moved so fast that if I hadn’t already been holding him, there would have been a terrible accident. Is this what it’s like to be a parent? It’s more stressful than a shootout.
“Congrats, kid.” Chip ruffles Scott’s hair and returns to his computer.
“Alright, now whoever eats this the fastest is going to be theonlyperson to get dessert, so you'd better eat fast!”
Scott’s already shoving carrot pieces into his mouth and covering his little fist in saliva with how eager he is to beat me. I eat with him, occasionally picking up the pace to make it looklike I’ll win but ultimately, I ensure he’s the victor and he very graciously accepts some ice cream while sticking his tongue out at me.
“You’re a cheeky winner, you know that?” I say while handing him the spoon.
Scott merely sticks his tongue out again. “Mommy says if I win, I should be proud and you’re a loser, so Mom won’t be giving you a bedtime story.”
“Aww man!” Pressing one hand to my chest, I sigh dramatically. “No bedtime story for me?”
“Nope.” He pops his lips on the P and spoons ice cream into his mouth. “I’m gonna tell Mommy I won.”
“You do that, Champ. You deserve it.” Meanwhile, I’ll be soaking up the delight that I got him to eat an entire plate of veggies fordays. “When you’re finished, how about we take your bike outside and see if we can’t get you riding from the door to the garage? How’s that sound?”
Scott’s eyes widen and he grins at me while ice cream stains the corner of his mouth. “Without the extra wheels?”
“I don’t know.” I chuckle, patting his head. “We’ll have to see how stable you are.”
“I’m stable! I promise!”
“Mmhmm.” A buzz rumbles near my hip from my phone so, with one eye locked on Scott, I answer the moment I see Maeve’s name on the screen. “Hey, is everything okay?”
“No,” Maeve gasps, her voice strained and hushed. “I mean immediately, it is, but it isn’t.”
Tension snaps down my spine and every drop of warm relaxation that’s come from playing with Scott vanishes. “Tell me.”
“Well, on one hand, things are good because I told your mom the truth about Scott, and I’m sorry if you wanted to wait on that, but she was so sad and I knew it would cheer her up.”
My brow twitches. I’ve not given it much thought since in my mind, despite being Scott’s father, Maeve is very much his parent. “I was always going to leave that choice up to you, so if you’re happy, then I’m happy.”
“Great, okay, and uhm…” She hesitates, and I distantly hear my mother’s tipsy laugh in the background. “I got an email from George. He says he’s in Las Vegas and he’s here to get what I owe him.”
“What? We wired that bast—uhm…” Scott gazes up at me with curious eyes. “What I mean to say is he should have it. He’s got no reason to be here. Don’t contact him, don’t go near him, understand?”
The sharpness in my voice catches Chip’s attention and he raises his head with his brow pinched.
“Okay,” Maeve replies. “I wasn’t going to, I just wanted to let you know.”
“Thank you, I’m glad you did.”
“We’ll be home soon.”
“Take your time.” I end the call and ruffle Scott’s hair as he demolishes his ice cream, then I walk over to Chip. “We wired the money to George, right?”
