Brothers of Paradise Series

Light brown, now that it’s no longer dyed dark.

She has a daughter.

I tuck my keys in my back pocket and reach them in a couple of strides. The girl sees me first. She looks at me with unbothered eyes and takes a long lick of her chocolate ice cream. She tugs on Jamie’s dress with a sticky hand.

“Yes?” Jamie says, turning. Then she sees me. “Oh. Hello.”

“Hi.” My gaze falls on the little girl again. She’s edged closer to her mother. “You guys in town for some ice cream?”

“Yes,” Jamie says. She has her own modest cone in her left hand, and places her right on the little girl’s head. “I haven’t had Paradise ice cream in years.”

“Best ice cream on the East Coast,” I say with a smile. “Look, I want to apologize for Lily again.”

I hadn’t planned to.

But here I am, saying just that, and looking back down at the little girl. Jamie is a mother. Where is her husband? Her boyfriend?

And why had Lily not told me about it?

“Please don’t. It’s not your fault,” Jamie says. She looks down at the girl industriously devouring her ice cream and hesitates. Like she doesn’t know what to say.

Silence stretches out between us.

“It’s okay,” I say. I don’t know what I’m referring to, but I hate that look on her face. I shouldn’t have stopped. Shouldn’t have bothered her.

“This is Emma,” Jamie says. “My daughter. Sweetie, this is one of Mom’s childhood friends. His name is Parker.”

I crouch down. “Hello,” I say. “It’s nice to meet you.”

The girl gives a half-swallowed mmhmm, her lips covered in ice cream.

“Chocolate is my favorite flavor too,” I say. “Next time, you have to try the toppings.”

Her eyes light up and she looks up at her mother. “Yes,” Jamie says. “We can try them next time.”

Emma lowers her ice cream. “What kind?”

“I don’t know what kinds there are. We’ll have to ask Parker.”

Emma turns back to me. Her eyes are shy, and the question is in them. She doesn’t voice it.

I run a hand along my jaw. “Let’s see here. There’s coconut, chocolate, tiny Oreos, M&M’s, marshmallows, cereal, rainbow. But I think I’ve missed some.”

“Oooh,” she says.

I grin at her. “Yeah. It’s pretty cool. But you’ll have to get your mom to agree.”

“That won’t be difficult,” Jamie says dryly. “I’m a pushover when she gives me those eyes.”

I chuckle. “I have a very hard time seeing you as a pushover, James.”

“Yeah, well, times change.” She looks down at her ice cream. “Are you getting some too?”

“I might, yeah. Are you gonna have a seat on the boardwalk?” I say, knowing all too well that I’m inviting myself.

“We should, yeah. I’ll need a few napkins to clean this off,” she says, looking down at the chocolate ice cream dripping down Emma’s arm. But there’s a fond smile on her face. It’s one I haven’t seen in the two weeks since she started working at the yacht club.

“I’ll join you,” I say. “If that’s okay?”

Jamie nods. It’s not an enthusiastic yes, but it is a yes, and I’ll take what I can get. A few minutes later I grab a seat next to them on the boardwalk, a cone of chocolate ice cream in hand.

“Look what I got,” I say to Emma and hold out a cup with rainbow sprinkles in it. “If you want some? Otherwise I’ll have them all.”

She gives a happy little squeal and then looks up at her mom again. “Yes,” Jamie says. “Go ahead.”

My sprinkles are quickly devoured, just as I’d hoped. I hand Jamie the extra stack of napkins I’d snagged.

“Thank you,” she says. And then, quietly, “I haven’t told Lily about her.”

“No, I figured. Do you want me to avoid mentioning it?”

Jamie looks out at the waves, hiding her expression from view. “Maybe, yeah. But I don’t want to put you in an awkward position.”

“Not possible,” I say. “I’m never awkward.”

She snorts. “Of course not.”

“She’s adorable,” I say, looking past Jamie at the girl swinging her legs and munching on sprinkles. “How old is she?”

“She’s just turned six.”

“Does your mom take care of her when you go to work?”

“Yeah.”

I lean back against the bench and stretch out my legs. There’s no need to rush things. “What flavor did you get?”

“Strawberry,” she says, and looks down at her almost finished cone. She’s silent for a long moment. “It wasn’t that I didn’t care, you know. With Lily. It was that I… cared too much.”

“You don’t have to explain it to me if you don’t want to,” I say. “The relationship between you two is yours. But for what it’s worth, I know she’s missed you. And she’d love to be friends again.”

Jamie’s voice is dry. “She was upset, last week. At work.”

“Yeah,” I say. “But you know Lily. She can never stay angry at the people she loves. I’m walking proof of that.”

Jamie gives another one of those half-laughs. “You two argued all the time.”NôvelDrama.Org copyrighted © content.

“Mhm,” I say, and take another bite of my ice cream. “About very important things.”