The Summer of Sunshine and Margot(65)

“Of course you can,” she said, doing her best to keep her tone light. “I’m not going to report him.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too much like running to my mom after someone’s mean to me on the playground. I don’t want to start something, I just want to pass my class. It’s not even him,” she added, telling herself she was fine. Or she would be. “I talked to one of the students in my class. I told her what happened.” She closed her eyes. “You know what she asked?”

“What?”

“She wanted to know if I was wearing something that made him think I was asking for that kind of attention.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “What year is this? Is that even relevant? For what it’s worth, I was dressed how I always am for school. In jeans and a shirt. Except for the professor, I’m the oldest person in the room. This isn’t about me trying to get a guy’s attention at a nightclub.”

“Report him,” Declan repeated. “The college would want to know what happened.”

“I’m sure they would, but this isn’t about that.” She managed a slight smile. “I warned you—I’m being pouty, so this is not the time for reasoned conversation.” She looked at him. “Please don’t try to fix my problem.”

“I really want to.”

“I know. It’s a guy thing. But you have to let this go.”

He exhaled heavily. “Fine. But only because you asked.”

“Thank you. Drink your margarita. You’ll feel better.”

He did as she’d requested, then asked, “What are you going to do?”

“Check out the math lab.”

“Do you want me to look over your assignments? I might remember enough to be able to help.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m going to go the math lab route. I think it would be awkward to have you helping me with my homework.”

“The offer stands.”

“Thank you.” She drank more of her margarita. “So did you get to spend much time with Phoebe today?”

“And the next topic?”

She laughed. “Come on. You have to admit she’s nice and funny and attractive.”

“Then you should date her.”

“She’s not my type, but you could...”

He looked at her, his expression exasperated. She grinned at him. He had a nice face. Strong and handsome. He was a good guy. Cared about his kid, which she liked best of all.

“Fine.” She faced the garden again. “I’ve been thinking about Connor’s birthday. It’s coming up fast. We should figure out the party.”

“You’re right, we should. I never much thought about it. That was one thing Iris handled. What did you have in mind?”

He rarely mentioned his late wife. She almost never came up in conversation and Sunshine had no idea what that meant. Connor talked about her, although less often than he used to. Sometimes, before bed, he sent up prayers to heaven, asking the angels to get her messages about what was going on in his life. But Declan was mostly silent about his relationship with her.

“I would propose we go with an ant-heavy bug theme. I’ve been looking around at decorations and there isn’t much that is just ant based. I can do some custom things easily enough. Let’s see.”

She put her margarita on the small table between them and held up one finger. “Food. The bakery at the grocery store will do ant cupcakes. I also have a recipe for an ice cream cake that looks like a watermelon with ants on it. We’d do a green punch and call it bug juice. There’s ants on a log, of course and I’m trying to come up with a bug-themed sandwich or wrap, but I haven’t had much luck yet.”

She held up a second finger. “For decorations I can make caterpillars out of balloons and a couple of places sell small plastic ants by the bag, so we’ll have those everywhere. I can get bug paper plates and cups. I’d buy plain goodie bags, then glue on ant cutouts. So far I’ve found Ant-Man soap, bug stickers and I wanted to talk to you about a flashlight. I found heat resistant stick-ons that I can cut into an ant shape so when they turn on the flashlight, there’s an ant on the wall.”

She grabbed her margarita and took a drink. “I’m hoping the weather will be nice enough that we can have the whole thing outside. I’d want to rent tables and chairs, if that’s okay with you. I have some game ideas, too, but it’s probably too soon to discuss those. So what do you think?”

He stared at her. “You’ve thought of everything. It sounds great. Yes, please, let’s do that.”

“Yay! What’s the budget?”

“Spend whatever you want.”

“You can’t say that. What if I go wild?”

“Then you go wild. I’m not worried. Sunshine, you use coupons when you do the grocery shopping. Those are not the actions of someone who is going to spend a thousand dollars on a kid’s birthday party. Also, a lot of what you’re describing is labor heavy, so time you’ll have to put in. I want to help. I’m pretty sure I could do some of the cutting and gluing.”

“I don’t know. It’s pretty tricky stuff.”

“Try me.” He smiled at her. “This is going to be Connor’s best party ever. The ones we threw him were much more low-key.”