Our Finest Hour (The Time #1)(26)

Stopped at a red light, I poke my fingers through my gold hoop earrings, fiddle with the shoe strap around my ankle, check my lipstick in the rearview mirror, look back at Claire. We’re almost to the restaurant.

Isaac called earlier this afternoon and offered to pick us up, but when I asked him if he had a car seat, he laughed.

“Right,” he’d said. “I’d better get one of those.”

Then he asked if Claire would like to go to an upscale arcade, a place with a bowling alley, billiards room, and restaurant.

When I asked him about her ability to play one-armed, he laughed again. Apparently, Isaac thinks this whole situation is great. He spends every moment of his life smiling or laughing. It baffles me.

I pull into a spot, get out, and unbuckle Claire. She hops out with a wide grin on her face.

“Is he here yet?” Her shiny eyes hold no reservation. She’s one hundred percent excited, one hundred percent happy, one hundred percent into Isaac.

“Let’s go find out.” I offer her my hand and she takes it.

We find Isaac waiting out front for us. And he’s alone.

“Hello, ladies.” Isaac bends down and slaps a high five with Claire. He straightens and looks at me. His lips form a line until a slow opening in the center makes them peel apart. His eye dance with unspoken words.

What is he holding back?

“Thanks for inviting me out,” he says, and I feel very certain that’s not what he was thinking just now.

My weight shifts to my other foot. “Claire really wanted to see you again.”

“Right.” He nods. “Well, Claire, are you ready to have some fun?”

“Yeah!” she yells, one fist in the air.

“Can I have fun too?”

My head snaps around to the voice. A woman’s voice. A tall, casually dressed but immaculately well-kept woman. Who has stopped at Isaac’s side and woven her arm through his.

Isaac glances at me. I hope I’ve rearranged my expression into something that passes as kind. Whatever emotion was on there, it wasn’t something I wanted him seeing.

“Aubrey and Claire, this is my friend Jenna.”

Jenna smiles at us and waves hello, but keeps her position beside Isaac. Her posture is stiff, but looking at her face you'd think she’s not at all nervous.

Isaac does his best to keep it from becoming more awkward than it already is. Thank god for Claire, who keeps us all from having to spend too much time faking conversation.

We follow her from game to game, watching. She squeals when she tries to smack the rodent that keeps popping up from different holes, and it’s quickly apparent that one-handed basketball shooting is not where her talents lie. She wastes a majority of the tokens Isaac has given her to get candy from the machine with the grabber.

“I can’t believe you’ve never brought her here,” Isaac says as he hands our menus to the server after we’ve placed an order for food. Jenna sits across from Claire, leaving Isaac to sit opposite me.

I grab a rogue crayon from beneath our table and hand it back to Claire. She’s wired from the four pieces of candy she gobbled before I took away the rest and hid it in my purse. Her coloring is more scribbling, as she uses the hand that sticks out from her cast to steady the paper and her good hand to draw a rainbow. Whenever her casted arm moves on the wooden table top, it makes a scratchy sound.

“Honestly, a place like this is full of germs.” I take my little travel bottle of hand sanitizer from my purse and spritz it on Claire’s hands, then rub it in for her.

“Safety first.” Isaac smirks. Beside him Jenna has a frozen smile on her face. She has no idea what he’s referencing.

I narrow my eyes. “Single mother, fewer sick days.”

Isaac stares at me, his mouth a straight line. After a few seconds, he says, “What about John? Hasn’t he been a big help?”

“My dad has been amazing. Without him, I can’t imagine how I would’ve done it. And I’m sure if I asked him to, he would call in sick to work and take care of her. But I’d rather avoid having to ask by eliminating the possibility.”

“When did you move in with him?” Isaac sits back, laying his arm across the top of the booth. Jenna sits back too, her posture relaxed for the first time all night.

“How do you know he doesn’t live with me?” Eyebrows raised, I fish a piece of ice from my drink and pop it in my mouth.

Isaac gives me his own raised eyebrows. “So you chose the bear rug mounted on your wall?”

Isaac’s right—the house is all Dad. “Is that what gave it away?”

“That and the sets of antlers on the shelf in the hallway.”

“Oh?”

Isaac leans forward, his face playful. “I put it together with the bumper sticker on the back of his big truck. ‘I’d rather be hunting.’”

“It was either that or ‘I like big bucks and I cannot lie.’” I bite the tip of my finger to keep from laughing.

Isaac’s eyebrows draw together. “A buck is a…?”

“Male deer.”

“Of course.” Isaac laughs when he says it, because he so clearly knows nothing about my dad’s number-one pastime. Jenna laughs politely.

“To answer your question, I moved in with him shortly after I found out I was expecting Claire. The lease on my apartment was almost up, and I needed help. I had a year left of college and my job at the campus juice bar didn’t quite leave me swimming in money.”