Dev nods, turning his attention back to the front windshield as the stoplight turns green. His voice remains low so Sammy won’t pay attention to it. “You’ll figure it out, eventually. You just have to ask the right questions and get him talking.”
I shake my head as I stare at the traffic going by. “I wish I knew what the right questions were. But sometimes this kid is just a great big mystery to me. So different from my girls.”
Dev pats my leg a few times before putting his hand back on the wheel. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll stuff him full of burgers and fries and he’ll sing like a canary.”
I smile. Dev apparently knows exactly how little boy brains work.
“Hey!” Dev says all of a sudden. “What’s that over there?” He’s pointing out the front window.
Sammy’s attention snaps back to us. “Where?” He strains in his seat to see out the windshield.
Dev is still pointing. “Over there! What are those big yellow things? Looks like a big M or something.”
Sammy grabs the edge of his car seat and squeals. “It’th McDonald’th! We’re almotht there!”
“Hallelujah,” says Dev. “I’m starving. I could eat eight hamburgers right now.”
“I could eat ten hamburgerth,” Sammy says, his face split in half with a giant grin.
“Oh yeah?” says Dev. “Well, I could eat fifty hamburgers right now.”
“Well, I could eat twenty trillion billion gadillion hamburgerth right now,” says Sammy.
Dev shakes his head. “Dude . . . you are seriously hungry.”
“Yeah, I know.” His voice switches to pitiful mode. “My mommy made me eat cookieth thith morning for breakfatht. It’th not really food.”
I laugh in indignation and turn around to glare at my son. “You little traitor. You asked me for those cookies. You said it was the only thing your sore tummy could eat.”
“Yeth, but you shouldn’t give me everything I athk for becauth you’ll thpoil me.”
I turn around and don’t say another thing. Those words are not Sammy’s; they’ve come directly from Miles’s mouth, and I will not be sharing my opinion on that today. Not with my sweet, innocent little boy there to hear it, anyway. Bastard Miles.
“Hmmm,” Dev says under his breath. “Trouble in paradise?”
I shake my head and mumble back. “Don’t even ask.”
Dev pulls into the McDonald’s parking lot and slides into a space that I could have sworn his car would not fit into if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.
“You’re pretty good at driving this tank.”
“They call me the smooth operator,” Dev says in his best corny-sexy voice.
I burst out laughing so hard, I start snorting.
Dev puts the car in park and turns off the engine, staring at me.
“You think that’s funny?”
I can’t answer him; I’m still laughing too hard. I just wave my arm at him and accidentally hit his shoulder. He acts like he has to duck away, like I’m abusing him.
Time to go. I need to get some fresh air before I become hysterical; I’m already halfway there. I grab for the door handle and almost fall out of the car when it works too easily. I keep my hand out to steady myself as I walk around to the other side of the vehicle to get Sammy out of his car seat, just to be sure I won’t fall. I’m weak in the knees from all the serotonin floating around in my brain. Whoever said laughter is the best medicine knew what she was talking about.
I’m so happy, it’s like I’m on drugs, and that’s quite an accomplishment, considering where I am; normally, McDonald’s is a guaranteed headache for me, and the pounding in my skull starts before I even get in the door. But right now? I’m floating, my feet barely touching the ground.
When Dev gets out of the car and I see his giant frame standing there, I realize he’s right; he is a smooth operator. It takes a lot of finesse for a guy that big, who stands out that much, to be so humble and kind and cool. In my entire life, I’ve never met a man like him.
McDonald’s is the typical madhouse that it always is seven days a week at this hour of the day. Coming here on a weekday at lunchtime makes me think half of the city must be unemployed and trying to find a place for their kids to run free so they can just relax, take a breath, and have a cup of coffee. The tables are filled with parents, and the outdoor play area is overflowing with wild, screaming children.
We stand behind a long line of fellow patrons. Little kids—siblings, probably—wrestle and fight with each other amongst their parents, jostling the crowd of desperate-looking people staring at the menus above the employees’ heads. Ahhh, McDonald’s . . .
Dev rubs his hands together. “Who wants a Happy Meal?”
Sammy jumps up and down with his hand up. “Me, me, me!”
Dev looks down at me from his great height. “What would you like, Mama? Happy Meal? Fries and a shake? A sedative?”
I smile, charmed. “I think I’ll have a fry and a sedative, please.”
He frowns at me. “I didn’t hear any protein in your answer.”
“Protein schmoteen. A fry will fill me up just fine, thank you very much.”
“Huh-uh. You gotta have some protein. You want chicken, fish, or red meat?”