Relying On Ben and Jerry (Waltham #1)

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Lookin' Like a Fool

“Favor,” I scoffed sourly to myself, scowling. “He had to ask me for a favor. Oh, no, you can say no. That’s totally cool. But of course I would never, because you have really nice arms and you smile a lot and it’s really cute and Number Three obviously hit me so hard that I lost all my brain cells—”

“Are you talking to yourself?” a small voice demanded in amusement. I jumped and looked over so fast that my neck cricked, and I rubbed at it frantically.

“It’s the best way to improve your social abilities,” I told the little girl brightly, smiling to enhance the effect, but she didn’t look all that convinced. “And to accuse people of something, even if it’s not to their face. It’s nice when you need to say the words, but the boy you want to say them to is really attractive and you might mess them up if it’s to his face.”

“You’re really weird,” the six-year-old told me, scowling. “I want Quinton to come over instead.”

“Well, Quinton can’t make it tonight,” I replied a little sharper than I meant to, glaring at the wall. “He asked me to do this as a favor.”

I would have sworn on my favorite tutu that Quinton was going to ask me out the night of the block party but—nope. Naturally, I wasn’t nearly that lucky, and he was too attractive, so he had looked me right in the eye and smiled at me, and my stomach was flipping all over the place, and then—“Lena, would you mind babysitting for me?”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I liked kids.

From afar.

And now I was trapped in a house with a six-year-old little girl who asked way too many questions and had a serious pair of judgmental eyes. From the moment I had walked into the house and introduced myself to her enthusiastic, overly-happy mother, she had been sending me the evil eyes. She had just sat on the stairs the entire time brushing the hair of one of her Barbies, staring me down like a psycho.

“Now, when you meet Alyssa, don’t be too freaked out by her initially,” Quinton had warned me, looking nervous. “A lot of people think that she’s trying to be mean or something, but she’s a really sweet kid; you just have to give her time to warm up to you. And whatever you do, don’t call her Jack.”

“Why would I call her Jack?” I’d asked him, confused. He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck nervously before clearing his throat, glancing away.

“Some of her old babysitters used to call her Jack Nicholson—you know, like from The Shining. When people call her that . . . Just promise me you won’t, okay?”

I suddenly understood that a lot better now. This little girl definitely was hiding a weapon collection behind her Barbie Dream House.

Alyssa continued to stare up at me from the floor, watching me unblinkingly as she twirled the hair of her Barbie around her finger, the room completely quiet for all but the sound of my muttered ranting. I had asked her if she wanted to watch television, but she had looked at me with a completely flat expression for a good five minutes before I had given up all hope of bonding with the girl.

I glanced down nervously at her, checking her over as if looking for a knife sheath. She seemed like just an ordinary six-year-old girl, but one with curly brown hair pulled neatly into two pigtails at her shoulders, and big brown doe-like eyes that could probably read my soul with the unexpected intensity in them. She had a pretty, smooth face, and her eyebrows were nicer than mine, which was partially an outrage, and otherwise just completely suckish for my self-esteem, if a six-year-old could have better eyebrows. I have an obsession with my eyebrows; this is a no hate space.

Anyway.

She was already in her pajamas—a little sleep dress that was light blue with a rubber duck pattern—but nothing about her appearance made her seem like an innocent little angel. If she was rumored to be like creepy Johnny, then there had to be a good reason, right?