Page 27 of The Wedding Favor

I slid my list in my pocket and smiled back at her. “Hi. I’m Iris.”

“I know. I was at your birthday party.”

“Oh, that’s right. But we haven’t been formally introduced.” I held out a hand. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

Her hand was small and sticky. “I like your hair. Do you think my dad would let me get stripes in my hair? Except purple ones. I like purple. It’s my favorite color.”

“Purple is a nice color. But you probably need to ask your dad about the hair.” I glanced out the front window but didn’t see Abe anywhere. “Where is your dad? Did you drive yourself?”

Hallie giggled. “No, Dad stopped to talk to somebody. He said he’d be a minute. He picked me up early from Grandma’s and said I could come with him to run some errands. But I think it was mostly because Grandma called him and said she wanted to take me to the animal rescue place and get me a dog and Dad said it wasn’t a good time to get a dog and then Grandma said that he’d had a dog when he was my age and then he came and picked me up.”

“Got it. No dog.”

“No dog. But”—she leaned closer and lowered her voice—“Grandma said the same thing Aunt Ali says, ‘Sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission,’ and then she winked at me. Do you think that means I’m getting a dog?”

The bell above the door tinkled again.

“Don’t tell my dad,” Hallie whispered.

Abe halted, his eyes darting back and forth between the two of us. Slowly, he slid his phone into the back pocket of his jeans, his expression suspicious.

“Don’t tell me what?” he asked.

“Nothing, Daddy.”

I shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I just work here.”

He made a small noise of disbelief as he sat on the stool next to Hallie. Abe ordered lemon meringue pie and iced tea for them both.

“Any luck on finding a sitter?” I asked as I wiped down the laminated menus for tomorrow.

Abe nodded. “There’s a teenager in the neighborhood who might be available. She’s watched Hallie for a few hours here and there.”

Hallie scowled. “I don’t even like her.”

“Mackenzie is very nice.”

“She forgot to feed me lunch last time.”

“You didn’t tell me this,” Abe said. “What was she doing?”

“Her and her boyfriend were having a fight, and she was on the phone the whole time. She kept telling me to go play in my room. Then she got off the phone and cried a lot, so I got her some ice cream, and she told me all about her problems.” She shrugged and shoved a piece of pie in her mouth.

“Mackenzie sounds pretty entertaining.” I leaned an elbow on the counter across from them. “Why were they fighting?”

“I can’t remember. I was hungry. I just wanted lunch,” she said glumly.

I turned my head to hide a smile. But Abe’s request for babysitting services had been stuck in my head all day. Hallie did seem sweet and fun to hang out with. I fingered the list in my pocket to remind myself what this summer was for—figuring out my life—not babysitting in my spare time. Still, a tiny bit of my resistance chipped off anyway.

“I’ll tell her she’s not allowed to use her phone while she’s watching you, okay?” Abe tugged one of her braids. My mind conjured up an image of him carefully weaving Hallie’s hair, a look of concentration on his face. Adorable.

“And that she has to feed me?”

“And that she has to feed you.”

“And she just can’t send me to my room for the whole time.”

Mackenzie was sounding less entertaining by the second. I didn’t know a lot about kids but ignoring them for hours didn’t seem the way to go.