Page 75 of The Young & the Sinner

“Yeah?”

“Did you know it’s been years since we’ve been here?”

I smiled. It had only been a month, but I played along. “So you’re pretty excited to be back, huh? What are you going to get?”

“The triple-chocolate lava cake, of course,” he said, and his voice suggested that I should have already known this.

“Of course.”

We got out the car and Henry grabbed both mine and Lizzie’s hands. Give it a few years and he won’t want to hold our hands anymore.

I tightened my hold on him just a little. Lizzie and I had become friends when I was twelve. I met Henry when he was three, and I swear this little boy took my heart that very first moment.

We walked into the cake shop grinning from ear to ear. Henry let go of our hands and quickly moved to the glass display of all the different kinds of cake.

Sally, a quiet girl we went to high school with, greeted us at the counter. “Hey, Olivia. Hey Lizzie.”

“Hi,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“Eh, I can’t really complain. I get to see little kids get excited about cake all day long.” She motioned with a smile to Henry, who now had his face pressed against the glass, his hands cupped on either side of his face.

Lizzie laughed and pulled Henry away. “What did I tell you about pressing your face against the glass?”

Henry looked down on a pout. “Not to do it.”

“Why?”

He fidgeted on his feet. “Because of germs.”

“Good. Now you want the triple-chocolate lave cake, right?”

His eyes lit up and Sally and I shared a smile. “And chocolate milk. Don’t forget the chocolate milk, Lizzie.”

“I won’t, squirt. Why don’t you find a table for us to sit while I order? Cool?”

She put out her fist, and he bumped it, his expression serious. I laughed then. He was just too cute. “Cool,” he repeated. “Can I have your phone to play with?”

Lizzie handed the phone to him and he grabbed it with both hands, as if it was the most precious thing in the world, then walked over to a corner table.

“Can you keep an eye on him while I order?” Lizzie asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. I’ll watch him.”

Henry didn’t do much. Just sat there, shifting in his seat every so often, while he played a game on Lizzie’s phone.

Lizzie came to stand next to me then, and I was about to turn and order for myself, when she stopped me with one hand on my forearm. “I already ordered for you. Don’t worry about it. Sally said she’ll bring it over to us when it’s done.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Henry barely glanced at us when we took our seats next to him. I looked down at the phone to find him playing the kids’ version of a word search. The little frown between his eyebrows was adorable. Lizzie and I shared a smile.

“So there’s this guy in my class. He’s a senior,” she said. I sat up a little straighter. Lizzie was bringing up a guy who wasn’t Max.

“There’s a senior in your class? What class are you taking?”

“What? Oh, it’s calculus. And he’s not really a student in the class. He’s the TA.”

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