Folk Around and Find Out (Good Folk: Modern Folktales #2)(27)

Actually, he was more than half good. Joshua was awesome.

I can admit when I’m wrong. The last thirty minutes constituted the most enjoyable and interesting conversation I’d had with another person—not counting Beau—in months. As I reflected on this fact, I caught his baby sister staring at my face. Her marker hovered above the paper and she was eating the end of her long hair, chewing on a few strands and making them wet. She smiled at me, the hair leaking out of her mouth.

It should’ve been disgusting. Perhaps I was coming down with something, but I didn’t think she was disgusting. She was aggressively adorable.

“You are not what I expected.” I leaned back to get a better look at Joshua and his sister, no longer bothered by those cautious amber eyes he shared with his momma anymore. I could appreciate how discerning they made both him and Charlotte look.

He stared at me but said nothing, and I liked that, too. I liked that he didn’t talk in order to say something or hear himself. How many adults did that? Not many.

“You’ve got layers, kid. I thought all kids your age were kind of—you know.”

“Plebeian?”

My eyebrows ticked up. “Did you say ‘plebeian’?” I couldn’t have been more tickled.

“Yes.”

“How do you even know that word?” What would this kid say next? I had no idea.

His gaze seemed to turn even more cagey and he whispered, “Do you know who Mike Duncan is?”

I searched my memory. “No,” I whispered back. “Who is he?”

“That’s how I know.” Joshua nodded once, the movement intensely serious. “You should listen to him. He changed my life.”

Before I could question who this Mike Duncan fella was who required us to whisper his name with reverence, someone kicked my shoe.

“This looks like some deep conversation.” Beau moseyed up, grinning at the kid, then at me. “What are y’all talking about over here?”

“The Federal Reserve and Roman society during the days of Caesar Augustus,” came Joshua’s response.

“Uh . . .” Beau’s attention bounced between us. “Okay, then. Food is ready when you are.” He gestured to the little girl. “Sonya, you want to come eat? Your momma has a plate ready for you.”

“No. I want to stay with Mr. Hank.” She turned her blue-gray eyes to me, a hint of pleading there, and a pleasant sense of something I couldn’t label had me sitting straighter with delighted surprise.

No one—and I mean absolutely no person on this whole green earth—has ever preferred my company to Beau Winston’s. No. One. Not once.

Until now.

I couldn’t help it. I grinned at Sonya. Then I winked.

She grinned back, blinking both her eyes then squinting like she was trying to wink but couldn’t manage, and that made me toss my head back and laugh. Man, I loved this kid and I didn’t even care she ate her hair, that’s how adorable she was. Illegal levels of endearing.

“What’s your middle name, Sonya?” I asked her.

“Marie,” Joshua answered for his little sister. “Sonya Marie Mitchell.”

I lifted a quick eyebrow at the fact that these kids apparently had their momma’s last name instead of their daddy’s, and addressed Sonya. “You are the cutest human being on the face of the earth, Sonya Marie. And that is a fact.”

“You’re cute, too,” she said, and she didn’t sound at all shy about it.

“Hank,” Beau scolded, bringing my attention back to him. He’d donned a lopsided smile. “She’s only four and she needs to eat.”

“I’m almost five!” the cutie in question piped in.

“See? She’s almost five.” I hadn’t known her age, but I’d figured she was less than seven. “Bring her plate over here. She can eat here, can’t she?” I tugged the leg of the coffee table over. “We used to eat out here all the time.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but Joshua cut in, “Can I eat with Mr. Hank too, please? I’m not finished.”

Beau gave me a quelling look, though he still smiled, and turned back toward the kitchen. “I’ll ask their momma. Be right back.”

Joshua waited until Beau had taken three steps before angling his shoulders toward me. “France’s central bank is called the Banque de France and it was founded waaaay before ours. Way back in the 1800s, even though they’ve had lots of different governments since then. They have a new government every fifty years, seems like.”

“Don’t you think it’s good that they have that kind of flexibility?” I scratched my short beard.

“What do you mean?”

“Folks in this country seem to think the world would end if our current form of government changed. I’m not saying I want the government to collapse, but it definitely seems broken and needs some changing.”

He lifted a hand between us, his palm facing me. “Don’t get me started on the two-party system in this country. It makes no sense. And how we vote for the primaries is a travesty.”

“Agreed.” Man, this kid really got it. “Nothing is getting done—and possibly it’s too broken to fix, and that’s okay. I like the recent French model where they come together peacefully to throw it out if it’s not working rather than treating documents written by old dudes from two hundred years ago like they’re the fu—uh, friggin’ Ten Commandments.”