Page 18 of Big Santa

I bite my lip.

I can almost picture him, wherever he is. A hotel room. A boardroom. Some man in a suit frowning at his phone, typing and deleting, trying to decide how to answer a woman he’s legally married to and has never said a word to out loud.

Finally:

Maverick: Hello, Noelle.

Maverick: Did Shiloh eat dinner?

I laugh.

Shiloh looks up.

He studies me with big brown eyes under a mop of dark hair that hasn’t seen a comb since breakfast. He has his father’s eyes, I think. At least, they look like the eyes in the photo on the mantel, the only picture of Maverick I’ve seen in this whole house.

Shiloh is still deciding what he thinks about me.

He watches me the way you’d watch a stray cat that wandered onto the porch. Curious. Careful. Not quite ready to put his hand out.

I understand that better than he knows. Grandma used to say you can’t rush a skittish thing; you can only sit still and be kind until it decides you’re safe.

That’s okay. I’m still deciding what I think about me too.

I snap a picture of his plate.

Me: Half a grilled cheese, six blueberries, three apple slices, and one green bean.

Maverick: One?

Me: There were negotiations.

Maverick: Did you win?

I look at the lone green bean still sitting on Shiloh’s plate. It’s limp and looks a little slimy.

Me: We reached a compromise.

Maverick: Meaning?

Me: He ate one and I stopped talking about green beans.

There’s a longer pause this time.

Maverick: That’s more than I usually get.

I smile. Something about that line tugs at me, though. There’s a whole story in it that he isn’t telling.

Me: Obviously, I’m very gifted.

Maverick: Obviously.

I stare at the word longer than necessary.

It’s one word. It shouldn’t feel like anything. But it reads dry and a little amused, and for the first time he sounds like a person instead of a set of instructions.

Then Shiloh dips a blueberry in ketchup.

“Oh, honey, that’s not gonna⁠—”