Mind Games

“He has no fear.”

“Did you?”

“No. I had boredom.” He glanced over to where Bray tried to chomp at bubbles along with the dog. “He’s never bored.”

The oven timer sounded.

“That could be the buzzer of doom.”

“We’ll find out.”

She went inside to take the potatoes out of the oven.

When Bray declared dinner yum, Ty nodded. “It worked pretty good. But we’re not giving up the tots.”

“Next thing you know you’ll be exchanging recipes when you’re in line at the grocery store, and googling busy-day meals.”

“Kill me now. Anyway, we have our busy-day meal. It’s called frozen pizza. Before the invention thereof, I wonder why women—because it was mostly women—didn’t just run screaming. Shopping for food, figuring out what to do with the food, cooking the food, cleaning up after, then doing it all again.”

“You left out laundry, housecleaning, children bathing, diaper changing—”

“Not anymore. Though we’re past the last, and thank you, Jesus.”

“You could hire some help, with the housecleaning part anyway.”

“Then somebody’s in the house. How am I supposed to work when somebody’s in the house?” He shrugged. “I went there before. Before,” he said again, tipping his head toward Bray. “They ended up cashing in.”

Sincerely horrified, she gaped at him. “They stole from you?”

“My privacy, yeah. Took pictures, did a couple tabloid interviews.”

“Well, that’s horrible. What did you do?”

“Besides fire their ass? Nothing. You sue, it keeps the ball rolling. And after, my family helped some. And there was Scott’s sister’s daughter. I knew her, could trust her with some babysitting when I really needed it.”

He gestured toward her with his beer.

“You don’t have a cleaning service.”

“Then somebody would be in my house? How would I get any work done?”

He laughed, tapped his beer bottle to her wineglass.

“How’s the game going?”

“Rem’s copious notes were insightful. I both hate and appreciate that.”

“So, glowing snakes?”

“Glowing snakes,” she affirmed. “They cost me a lot of time and sweat to get right, but they seriously work.”

“We saw snakes at the zoo. Giant snakes! But I wasn’t scared. Bunk wants to play bubbles.”

“Okay. Let me fill it up again.”

“The frog,” Bray explained while Ty got the bubble liquid, “drinks the bubbles. Then he burps bubbles!”

“That’s amazing.”