“We better get going,” I told them, heading towards the door.
Cassidy and I gave them each a hug before we left. As we were pulling out of their driveway, I thought about how ironic today had actually been. We were there to help them out and to raise their spirits, but I left there feeling better than I had in weeks.
Chapter 11
Maverick
?
“Dusty! Put that down,” Dallas scolded. “You know you aren’t supposed to touch anything in here.” She took the wrench from his hand and wiped the grease off of his little fingers. I’d gone out back to the garage to see Clutch. I went to ask how things went with Henley, and found him with his head under the hood of Dallas’s car. He was always working on someone’s engine, and I wondered why he didn’t have a garage of his own.
My phone chimed with a text message, but I ignored it, leaving it in my pocket. Dallas had already noticed me walking up, and she looked relieved to see me. She smiled and said, “Look, Dusty! Maverick’s here.”
“Mav-wrick!” he shouted as he raced over in my direction with his arms spread wide. I bent down and tried to brace myself for his impact, but still almost fell backwards when he jumped into my arms.
I lifted him up and said, “Hey there, little brother. Are you giving your mom a hard time?” I noticed Katie sitting in the corner with her face glued to her phone, and I wondered if she even knew I was there.
“No sir,” he said shaking his head. “I’m being good.” I looked over to Dallas, and she shrugged her shoulders and smiled as she turned back to Clutch to see what he was doing with the car.
“You want to go to the kitchen and see if there’s any ice cream?”
“Yes! I want cookie dough ice cream. It’s my fav-rit’,” he explained. His little body began to wiggle with excitement. I lowered him to the ground and started walking towards the back door. “We’ll be right back,” I called out to Dallas.
“Just a little, Dusty. We haven’t had dinner yet,” she ordered.
“Okay,” he said as he reached up and took a hold of my hand.
Just as we were leaving the garage, Dusty shouted, “Hey Henwey!” Lifting his free hand up high, he began waving frantically in her direction. She was helping Cassidy carry some empty boxes to the dumpster.
She stopped with her arms loaded with cardboard boxes and shouted, “Hey Dusty!” Her face beamed with a wide smile, and I knew right then that they’d had a good day together.
“I’m gonna go get some ice kem’ with Mav-wrick,” he told her with the biggest grin I’d ever seen.
Still smiling, she said, “Save some for me!”
“I will. Momma said I can only have a little since I haven’t ate dinner yet.” His little finger clutched tightly around my fingers as I led him into the kitchen. I reached under his arms and lifted him up on to the counter by the refrigerator. He sat there, swinging his feet out and kicking the cabinet with the back of his heels, as I dug in the freezer looking for his cookie dough ice cream. He eagerly watched as I placed several spoonfuls into the bowl.
“Thanks, Mav-wrick’,” Dusty said with his eyes trained on his bowl of ice cream. “Ummm, you have sprinkles?”
“Sorry, buddy. I don’t, but I’ll make sure to get some for next time.”
After handing him the bowl, I lifted him up and carried him over to the table. “Did you have fun today with Henley and Cassidy?”
“Hen-wey is cool. She saved Gotham City for me,” he said eyeing his bowl of ice cream. He grabbed his spoon, and brought a big bite up to his mouth. “Yum! It’s good.”
My phone chimed with another text message, but I continued to ignore it. When it beeped two more times, Dusty said, “Your phone beeps a lot. I think someone wants you.”
“I’ll check it later. Eat up, mister. Your mom is waiting for us.” I already knew that the messages weren’t important. I’d been getting the same ones over and over, and I was about to lose my patience.
I watched as Dusty shoveled bite after bite into his mouth. He made all these funny little humming and grunting noises as he ate. He was obviously enjoying every damn spoonful. As soon as he finished his ice cream, I took him back to Dallas. Clutch was just about done with the car, and they were getting ready to leave.
On my way back inside, my phone beeped again, and I went straight to Big Mike’s room. I was ready to throw the damn thing out the fucking window, and he was the only one I knew who could fix it.
“Something is wrong with this piece of shit phone,” I told him. “I need you to look at it to see if you can fix it.”
“What’s it doing?” Big Mike asked as he took the phone from my hand.
“I keep getting these stupid text messages, and I can’t get them to stop,” I explained. “It must be a virus or something.”