Page 5 of Summer Love

Before Coop could take evasive action, his hand was clutched by Keenan’s. He’d been right, he thought with a wince. It was sticky.

“We’ve got cookies,” Keenan told him, cannily deducing that he could have double his afternoon’s treat if he played his cards right.

“Great.”

“We baked them ourselves, on our night off.” Keenan sent Coop a hopeful look. “They’re really good.”

“I bet.” Coop caught the back door before it could slam shut.

“There.” Keenan pointed to a ceramic cookie jar in the shape of a big yellow bird on the counter. “In Big Bird.”

“Okay, okay.” Since it seemed like the best way to appease the kid, Coop reached in and pulled out a handful of cookies. When he dumped them on the table, Keenan’s eyes went as wide as saucers. He could hardly believe his luck.

“You can have one, too.” He stuffed an entire chocolate chip deluxe in his mouth and grinned.

“That good, huh?” With a shrug, Coop sampled one himself. The kid, Coop decided after the first bite, knew his cookies. “You’d better get next door.”

Keenan devoured another cookie, stalling. “I gotta wash out my thermos, ’cause if you don’t, it smells.”

“Right.” Cooper sat at the table to read through the lease while the boy dragged a stool in front of the sink.

Keenan squirted dishwashing liquid in the thermos, and then, when he noticed Coop wasn’t paying any attention, he squirted some more. And more. He turned the water up high and giggled when soap began to bubble and spew. With his tongue caught between his teeth, he jiggled the stopper into the sink and began to play dishwasher.

Coop forgot about him, reading quickly. The lease seemed standard enough, he decided. Zoe had already signed both copies. He dashed his signature across from hers, folded his copy, then set the check he’d already written on the table. He’d picked up the keys and rose to tuck his copy in his pocket when he spotted Keenan.

“Oh, God.”

The boy was drenched, head to foot. Soap bubbles dotted his face and hair. A good-sized puddle was forming on the tile at the base of the stool.

“What are you doing?”

Keenan looked over his shoulder, smiled innocently. “Nothing.”

“Look, you’ve got water everywhere.” Coop looked around for a towel.

“Everywhere,” Keenan agreed, and, testing the opposition, he slapped his hands in the sink. Water and suds geysered.

“Cut it out! Jeez! Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere else?” He grabbed a dish towel and advanced, only to be slapped in the face by the next geyser. His eyes narrowed. “Look, kid—”

He heard the front door slam. Like mother, like son, he thought.

“Keenan?” Zoe called out. “I hope you haven’t been into those cookies.”

Coop looked at the crumbs on the table, on the floor, floating in the soapy water.

“Oh, hell,” he muttered.

“Oh, hell,” Keenan echoed, beaming at him. He giggled and danced on his stool. “Hi, Mom.”

Zoe, her arms full of day-old irises, took in the scene with one glance. Her son was as wet as a drowned dog and her kitchen looked as though a small hurricane had blown through. Hurricane Keenan, she thought. And her new tenant looked damp, frazzled, and charmingly sheepish.

Like a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, she noted, glancing at the telltale crumbs.

“Been playing dishwasher again?” With a calm that baffled Coop, she set the flowers down. “I’m just not sure it’s the right career choice, Keen-man.”

Keenan fluttered his long, wet lashes. “He wanted cookies.”

Coop started to defend himself, then simply scowled at the boy.

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