Cam was taking out a bag of garbage in preparation for Suzette’s fourth visit when she called. He hoped she wasn’t cancelling. He’d busted his butt to make the place look presentable and none of his closets were avalanches waiting to happen. There was also the not so small matter of his attraction to her. The six days between visits felt like months. More and more he found himself saving things he wanted to tell her when she did come. Was he falling for her? Maybe. That wouldn’t be the worst thing, if it happened, but he needed to be careful and not jump into anything. He and Morgan had gotten together pretty quickly and look how that had turned out.
“Hey, Cam, I’m in a bind,” Suzette said. “Ellen can’t watch Zinny today. Her friend had a small stroke and she wants to spend the day with her to make sure she’s all right.”
“You said something about your niece that first day too. Is this a regular thing, you babysitting her on Saturdays?”
“Sorry. I guess I never explained. I’m Zinny’s legal guardian. My sister and her husband were killed in a car accident two years ago.”
“Oh, shit. Shit. I’m…I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. So, because my parents are…not the kind of people I want Zinny associating with, we live with Ellen, Zinny’s grandma on her dad’s side.”
He winced. “Sorry again.”
“Don’t worry about it. They’re non-entities, as far as I’m concerned.”
Shit. He wondered if he’d ever get the whole story behind that. It was something completely foreign to him. He had wonderful parents.
“So,” he said, getting back to the topic of today, “the kid’s not afraid of dogs, is she?”
“She loves dogs, in theory. She hasn’t really met that many.”
“Okay, sure. Bring her.”
An hour later, Cam was face to face with a little girl who was cuteness personified. She had round cheeks, huge brown eyes and two ponytails sticking out the sides of her head like bike handlebars.
“Hi, I’m Cam.”
“Are those your dogs?” she asked, wide-eyed.
As usual, Cam was holding onto Zeus while Gizmo greeted the little girl, sniffing her feet and wagging his tail like he was trying to propel himself.
“Yes, they are.” Pointing to each dog in turn, he said, “That’s Gizmo and this big guy is Zeus. What’s your name?”
“My name is Zinny and I love dogs,” she said. “Is Zeus mean? Is that why you’re holding him?”
“Zeus is actually very friendly. He just gets rambunctious sometimes.”
“What’s rambunctious?”
“Really excited. Come on over and you can pet him if you want. See how their tails are wagging? That means they’re ready to make friends. If a dog’s tail is tucked between his legs, that means he’s not in a friendly mood.”
After a moment or so of careful thought, Zinny slowly approached and reached her hand out.
“Hi, Zeus,” Zinny said. The touched his head tentatively. “We should be friends because our names start with the same letter.”
Zeus nosed her hand, which made her giggle. She began petting him more confidently.
“She’s adorable,” he said to Suzette. “How old is she?”
“I’m six,” Zinny said.
“Six is an excellent age,” Cam said. “I was six when I joined my first hockey team. What’s in your backpack?”
She had the littlest backpack he’d ever seen. Adorned with a pictures of puppies, it didn’t look like it would hold one of his shoes.
“Stuff,” she answered.
Suzette put a hand on her niece’s shoulder. “Books, crayons, some homework, and a puzzle.”
“It’s five hundred pieces.”
“Impressive,” he said.
After seating Zinny at the kitchen table, Suzette gestured to Cam that she wanted to talk to him privately, so they went back into the living room. Suzette wrung her hands.
“So I have another favor to ask,” she said. “I…is it okay if I wear this while I’m cleaning today?”
She looked different today and it wasn’t just the street clothes. She didn’t have a ton of makeup on. He found he preferred this look. It felt more, well, intimate, like she’d taken off a mask to reveal her true self.
“Of course. I told you before, you don’t have to…do that here.”
“Thank you. I just wanted to make sure.”
Cam decided to hang out with Suzette and Zinny because he’d spent only minimal time with kids and he was curious about the species. Suzette worked in the kitchen while Zinny did her jigsaw puzzle, after which she promised to do her homework.
“They give homework on the weekends?” Cam asked. “That’s criminal.”
“It’s not from my teacher,” Zinny said. “Nana wants me to have good printing so I have to do five pages of practice every day. But Koko said I can do them with markers so it’s more fun.”
“Koko?”
Zinny giggled. “I couldn’t say Dakota when I was a baby,” Zinny explained. “So I call her Koko.”
Cam swung his gaze toward the woman scrubbing out the microwave. “I thought you were Suzette.”
“Suzette is my, ah, work name,” she said with a pointed look. “My real name is Dakota.”
“Dakota,” he repeated with a slow smile. Dakota. It suited her much more than Suzette.
“You have a work name?” Zinny asked Dakota. “I didn’t know there was such a thing as work names.”
“It’s more like a nickname,” Dakota said backpedaling. She sent Cam a “help me” look.
“Do you want to know what my work nickname is?” Cam asked.
Zinny nodded.
“Bo.”
Zinny frowned.
“My last name is Bowes, but everybody calls me Bobo.” He took one of her markers and printed his last name on her practice paper. His printing was horrible and Dakota had to stifle her laughter.
Zinny sighed. “I don’t have a nickname.”
“Yes, you do,” Dakota said. “Your real name is Zinnia, so your nickname is Zinny.”
Zinny’s frown showed she wasn’t quite buying that idea.
“I want a new nickname. Can it be Ariel?”
Cam laughed. “Hell—er, hello no,” he said, catching himself mid-cuss, “it can’t be Ariel. The number one rule of nicknames is that you can’t pick one for yourself. It has to be given to you, like a present. And usually it’s a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“What’s spur-of-the-moment?”
“Something that’s not planned,” Dakota said.
Zinny didn’t seem to like this but she didn’t comment further.
“That’s enough about nicknames,” Dakota said, closing the microwave and turning to the refrigerator. “You have four pages of printing practice.”
When Zinny sighed, Cam muttered, “Nana ought to lighten up.”
Dakota closed the refrigerator and said, “Cam, can I talk to you in the other room?”
“What’s up?” he asked, once they were in the living room.
“I happen to agree with you about Nana lightening up, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make that kind of comment in front of Zinny. Ellen has more rules than the IRS, but I want Zinny to respect her. She is her grandmother.”
“Okay, sure. I’m sorry. I’m…I’m not used to being around kids. That’s a totally valid request.”
“Thanks for understanding. Besides that, she did teach Zinny how to read, and right now she’s three grade levels ahead in language arts.”
“Wow. That’s impressive,” he said as he followed Dakota back to the kitchen. “But newsflash, nobody gives out awards for good printing,” he said.
“Yes, they do,” Zinny piped up. “My teacher puts a glitter happy face on your paper if your printing is good.”
Dakota cast him a glance that said see why we went into the other room? With kids, he realized, you really had to watch what you said. They were like miniature Big Brothers, always listening.
“I stand corrected,” Cam said with a laugh.
“You should practice too, Cam,” Zinny said. “Your printing isn’t very good. That doesn’t even look like a B.”
He laughed again. This kid was hilariously direct. “You’re right,” he said.
Even though Dakota assured him he didn’t have to entertain Zinny, he stuck around and practiced writing his upper and lower case Bs, even if he only did one page to her four. Afterward, they did the puzzle together. Her bubbly enthusiasm was contagious.
Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, the kid was much better at puzzles than he was, snapping the pieces together probably four to his one.
“Have you done this puzzle before?” he asked accusingly.
“No. You have to look at the shapes. See how this part is fatter? That means the hole has to be fat too.”
After only a couple seconds of scanning, she popped that piece in. “See?”
Secretly appalled that this little first grader was showing him up, he nodded. “I guess I’m just not very good at puzzles.”
“Everyone has their gifts,” she said and Cam wondered if that was something Dakota or Nana had a habit of saying. “What are you good at?” Zinny asked.
“I’m good at hockey.”
“What’s hockey?”
“What’s hockey?” Aghast, he turned to Dakota. “I regret to inform you, madam, that your niece’s education is sorely lacking. How can she not know what hockey is?”
Dakota shrugged as she wiped down the stove. “We don’t watch a lot of sports at home.”
“Well, there just happens to be a game tonight at the Dragon Arena. I could arrange for some tickets for you guys. You could watch me play, Zinny. You can even bring Nana.”
Zinny gasped. “Koko, please can we go?” Zinny said, running over to her aunt and grabbing her around the hips. “Please oh please oh please oh please?”
Dakota laughed and tugged on one of her ponytails. “You don’t even know what hockey is.”
“It’s a sport. I know that.”
“And you’ll know a lot more if you come watch a game,” Cam pointed out.
Dakota looked unconvinced.
“It’ll be fun and educational.” Thinking money might be an issue, he said, “Tickets are on me, obviously. The parking too.”
“How late do they usually go?” Dakota asked.
“Ten? Ten-thirty?”
“That late?”
“Koko, please. It’s not a school night…”
“I’ll think about it.”
Cam nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll call it in just in case,” he said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He found he really wanted Dakota to come see him play. So far, the only side to him she knew of was his messy side. It seemed important for her to think of him as something other than a slob with money.
“Nana won’t want to go,” Zinny said. “She doesn’t like sports.”
“Okay. Just two tickets then.”
Five minutes later, he hung up the phone, having arranged for two seats in the premiere section behind the bench, low enough to be somewhat close to the ice, but high enough so they’d get a good view of the game. He also got them some vouchers, good at any of the food venues in the arena.
He found Dakota in the dining room, sweeping the marble floors. “Okay, it’s all arranged.”
“Cam, that’s really nice of you,” she said.
“Where’s the kid?”
“Bathroom.”
“You really should take her. If you guys come early enough, I’ll toss a puck over the glass for you guys after warm-ups.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said for the second time.
“Which means no,” he said with a sigh. “At least, that’s what ‘I’ll think about it’ meant when I was a kid.”
She smiled and continued sweeping. She even moved the chairs out of the way so she could sweep underneath, which in his opinion was above and beyond the call of duty.
“So, I’m going to walk the dogs.”
Two seconds later, the dogs bounded into the room having heard the word “walk,” even from two rooms away. Apparently, Zinny’s hearing was just as good because she arrived along with the dogs.
“Can I come?” Zinny asked, skidding to a stop.
Dakota shook her head. “No. Leave Cam alone. He already spent a long time with you doing your puzzle. I’m sure he doesn’t want you tagging along. You can read your book.”
“Actually,” he said, “I could use the help. If you can find the leashes, you can walk Giz.”
“I wanted to walk Zeus.”
“Zeus might knock you over. Maybe next time.”
“I’m pretty sure I saw the leashes in the pantry,” Dakota said, “although why they would be in the pantry is beyond me. This is really sweet of you, but you don’t have to do this.”
“I know,” he said. “I want to.”
Surprisingly, that was true.