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“Are you sure we shouldn’t wake up your mom?”
Rocky shook his head and grabbed a slice of the pepperoni and mushroom pizza. For the record, this was the first time I had ever seen a kid willingly eat mushrooms. I figured that was a taste bud most people didn’t get until they were in their thirties.
“I checked on her before the pizza got here. She’s still breathing,” Rocky advised. “She’s fine.”
I knew she was fine, but I didn’t know if she was going to be happy when she woke up, and it was nighttime. Or hell, if she kept sleeping, it very well could be morning when she cracked open her eyes.
She obviously needed rest. She had been pushing herself to bounce back to normal like she hadn’t been tossed through the air a good twenty feet.
“When is your normal bedtime?” I asked.
Rocky shrugged. “Mom let’s me go to sleep whenever I want.”
I tipped my head to the side and raised my eyebrows. “Are you forgetting that I have met your mom before?” I chuckled. “I find it hard to believe that she just lets you go to sleep whenever you want.”
“I mean, she doesn’t care as long as my light is off by eleven.”
I closed my eyes and opened them slowly.
“Ten?” he squeaked.
I cleared my throat and wiped my hands. “I guess I’ll just wake your mom up and ask her what your bedtime is.”
“Nine!” Rocky whisper shouted. “My light has to be off by nine, and I need to be up by seven. The bus picks me up at seven forty.”
I nodded slowly. “That sounds reasonable. I guess we can just let your mom sleep.”
Rocky wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and sighed.
“You have any homework?” I asked.
Rocky shook his head. “I normally do, but I had a substitute teacher today. I’m sure tomorrow I’m going to have a boatload.”
That also seemed believable.
“So, what do you want to do tonight?” He still had two hours before his lights-out time.
“We could watch a movie and pop some popcorn,” he suggested.
“I’m game for that.” I grabbed another slice of pizza and flipped the box shut. “If your mom wakes up, we better save her a few slices.”
“Good idea.” Rocky jumped up with his pizza in his hand and jogged into the living room. “I’ll pick the movie if you want to pop the popcorn.” I could tell that he was Olive’s kid. They both had a way of being bossy without being overly bossy. Well, Olive was straight-up bossy when she had been trying to get rid of me, but I obviously didn’t listen.
“You got it.”
Ten minutes later, I had the pizza cleaned up, and I was camped out on the sofa with Rocky while the opening credits to one of the Transformer movies played.
“Have you seen this one before?” Rocky asked.
“Which one is it?” I asked.
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon.”
“Nope,” I shook my head. “Can’t say I have seen this one.”
“Have you seen any of them?”
“I think I saw the first one.” I was a bit behind on keeping up with movies. I didn’t have a TV in my bedroom at the clubhouse, and normally I just watched whatever everyone else was watching in the common room.
“You missed the second one, then, but that’s okay. I fill you in on the things you missed.”
“Good deal, bud,” I laughed. “You’re like CliffsNotes for the movie.”
“Yeah, whatever that is,” he agreed.
Rocky made it an hour into the movie before he was knocked out on my shoulder.
I finished watching the movie with him snoring on me, and then I carried him to his bed.
Just like his mom when I had carried her to bed last night, he didn’t budge.
They both slept like a sack of rocks.
I kept his door cracked open and made my way back to the couch. Thankfully, Olive had a decent couch, and it wasn’t hell having to sleep on it.
It wasn’t even nine o’clock, and my eyelids were already heavy.
I locked up the house and sprawled out on the couch.
I had a pretty good feeling that Olive was going to be pissed when she woke up, but at least she was going to be rested and pissed off.
*
