Page 77 of The Young & the Sinner

“I know. So why am I not feeling it?”

I didn’t say anything. We both knew the truth. She wasn’t feeling it because she was in love with Max. She sighed and looked at Henry. Then she laughed. I looked and laughed, too.

Henry was halfway finished with his cake. But it looked like more got on his cheeks than in his mouth. Lizzie pulled out an unopened water bottle from her bag and a small hand towel in a re-sealable plastic bag. “I came prepared.”

She wet the towel a little and used it to wipe Henry’s face. He scrunched up his face at her but didn’t say anything. Henry was one of the most well-behaved kid I had ever met. Quiet, too. Until he got to know you.

“Okay?” she asked him, putting the towel back in the bag.

“Okay, Lizzie.” He grabbed his chocolate milk in both hands and took a huge sip from the straw.

“You’re good with him,” I said.

“Well, he’s an easy kid.”

“You’re pretty good with all kids,” I said. And that was true. Lizzie and I once tried to set up a babysitting business during our freshmen year of high school. Whereas I was good at getting in more business for us, negotiating prices with the parents, and keeping track of the money we made, it was Lizzie who did the babysitting bit.

I felt like such a failure during my first attempt at holding an actual baby. Lizzie laughed and said it wasn’t a big deal, but our “business” only lasted that year, before I got the job at the grocery store.

Lizzie grinned. “I know. But it’s going to be years before I have a kid of my own. Trust me, I do not want to end up like Jenna McKay.”

I nodded in agreement and raised my coffee cup. Lizzie clicked her mug against my own before we took a small sip. Jenna McKay was a girl we went to middle school and part of high school with. She got pregnant at sixteen, dropped out of school at seventeen, and last I heard, she was living with her parents and her baby girl.

And though I didn’t want to be in her situation, I thought she was pretty lucky to have such supportive parents by her side.

We finished out desserts quickly after that. Henry was pretty excited to be out with his sister and her friend, who he thought were the coolest people on the planet. He told us so.

Lizzie and I shared a smile.

We were both theater geeks and weren’t considered cool by our peers, but it was nice that he thought so.

By the time I dropped Lizzie and Henry off and made my way home, the sky was already darkening and Max’s car was there. But that wasn’t what got my attention. It was the fact that Max stood on the porch… and there was someone there with him. It looked like she was on her way out, and with the way she was touching him, it told me she was intimately familiar with him.

Max had never had company over since I moved in with him. My hands felt sweaty all of a sudden, and I realized I was nervous.

What if this woman was important to Max?

I had no problem with him dating, and even if Lizzie might be hurt if she knew I felt this way, I wanted Max to date. I wanted him to have more in his life than just be my guardian.

But the thing with Max dating was, he never did.

At least, not seriously.

He had always been too hung up on my mom to date seriously, but it had been almost four months since she’d left. And for this woman to be here, even if she was… stopping by? I wasn’t sure why she was here in the first place, or if Max had invited her in and she was on her way out.

I parked the car and they both turned to me. Max waved, and though he couldn’t see inside the dark car, I waved back.

The woman did nothing. She barely glanced my way before turning back to Max as if he was the most fascinating man in the entire world.

What if she didn’t like the fact that Max had a ward? Technically, I wasn’t his ward anymore. But we both knew I was still very much under his care.

Most women wanted to be the most important person in the life of the man she was dating. That couldn’t be the case here… could it?

Was I selfish not to want that?

I was the most important person in Max’s life right now. Would that change? And what did it say about me that I didn’t want it to change?

I slowly got out of the car.

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