“
What happened?” Dallas asked immediately, his hand reaching out toward Louie. I didn’t miss how Lou took his hand instantly.
“She called me a brat,” Louie blurted out, his other little hand coming up to meet with the one already clutching our neighbor’s.
I blinked and told myself I was not going to look at Christy until I had the full story.
“Why?” Dallas was the one who asked.
“He spilled some of his hot chocolate on her purse,” it was Josh who explained. “He said sorry, but she called him a brat. I told her not to talk to my brother like that, and she told me I should have learned to respect my elders.”
For the second time around this woman, I went to ten. Straight through ten, past Go, and collected two hundred dollars.
“I tried to wipe it up,” Louie offered, those big blue eyes going back and forth between Dallas and me for support.
“You should teach these boys to watch where they’re going,” Christy piped up, taking a step back.
Be an adult. Be a role model, I tried telling myself. “It was an accident,” I choked out. “He said he was sorry… and your purse is leather and black, and it’ll be fine,” I managed to grind out like this whole thirty-second conversation was jabbing me in the kidneys with sharp knives.
“I’d like an apology,” the woman, who had gotten me suspended and made me cry, added quickly.
I stared at her long face. “For what?”
“From Josh, for being so rude.”
My hand started moving around the outside of my purse, trying to find the inner compartment when Louie suddenly yelled, “Mr. Dallas, don’t let her get her pepper spray!”
The fuck?
Oh my God. I glared at Louie. “I was looking for a baby wipe to offer her one, Lou. I wasn’t getting my pepper spray.”
“Nuh-uh,” he argued, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Christy take a step back. “I heard you on the phone with Vanny. You said, you said if she made you mad again you were gonna pepper spray her and her mom and her mom’s mom in the—”
“Holy sh—oot, Louie!” My face went red, and I opened my mouth to argue that he hadn’t heard me correctly. But… I had said those words. They had been a joke, but I’d said them. I glanced at Dallas, the serious, easygoing man who happened to look in that instant like he was holding back a fart but was hopefully just a laugh, and finally peeked at the woman who I’d like to think brought this upon herself. “Christy, I would never do that—”
...
I cleared my throat and popped my lips. “Well, that was awkward.”
“I’m not a brat.” Louie was still hung up and outraged.
I pointed my finger at him. “You’re a tattletale, that’s what you are. Nosey Rosie. What did I tell you about snitches?”
“You love them?
”
”