83

Adam

Scammed Out Of A Hundred Dollars

There were fifteen minutes to spare before we had to do a short interview in front of one of the rides and I headed right back to the petting zoo, to Piper reminding a little boy that he needed to stop kissing the hen house.

"Honey, we don't clean those," Piper said, gently tugging him back. "Seriously, I don't think they've ever been cleaned."

The kid pouted at her. "But how will the chickens know I love them?"

"They'll know in their hearts," she assured him, and I grinned from the fence.

Piper stood up in a second and gave me a tired smile, walking past the goats, bleating at each other. I frowned at her. "Wow. Is that how you get a girl? Just kiss the door of her dorm?"

"Don't start," she warned, kneeling down to stop a little kid from throwing hay at a chicken. Her voice dropped. "I didn't realize signing up for a petting zoo meant convincing twenty kids to keep their shoes on."

"I told you, kids are gross."

She rolled her eyes. "Okay."

"See, this should be free birth control for you." I laughed. "And they're loud—look at that kid—trying to pick up the duck—"

"Wait! Jay!" Piper dove down and gently reprimanded him, heading back to the fence again with a sigh. "Forget I said anything, Adam. They're fine. It's getting slower, I'm just complaining to complain."

I leaned forward on the fence and gazed down at her. "Long shift? You want a break?"

"I don't get a break for another forty-five minutes."

"Take five, go grab a lemonade." I fished out a twenty and passed it to her. "I'll watch over the pigpen."

"Don't tease me like that."

"I'm not joking. You can stretch your legs, grab a drink, powder your nose, whatever girls do."

She bit her lip, giving a long look at the rest of the rodeo behind me.

"You know you want to." I chuckled. "I only have a couple of free minutes here, ice princess. If you're going to get a move-on, you have to go now. Now, now ."

"It's not an inconvenience—?"

"Piper." I raised my eyebrows. " Go. "

I stretched over the fence while Piper walked around to the exit, still glancing over her shoulder at me. I waved her away

I could handle Lord of the Flies .

Out of the corner of my eye though, I watched Piper walk towards the lemonade stand until she was out of earshot.

Bingo .

I slipped my wallet out of my back pocket. The petting zoo emptied out a little with lunch, but there were still a dozen kids bothering the livestock. One of them caught my eye, a little boy with a bow tied on his shirt, petting a baby goat.

Perfect .

I crouched close to him. "Hey, kid. Do you want to make fifty bucks?"

"Huh?" The little boy glanced up with huge brown eyes. He nodded vigorously. "Yes, please."

"Good. Do you see that lady over there by the lemonade stand? The one in the dark blue shirt?"

"The pretty one?"

I grinned. This was the perfect kid. "You're damn right." I stopped myself. "Wait—sorry. You're right. Not damn right. Don't repeat that." I shook my head. "Look, I need you to say something when she comes back around, okay? You say it, you get fifty bucks."

The kid nodded even harder. "I'm Bruce."

"Cool. I didn't ask for your life's story, kid." I thumbed back towards Piper. "When she comes around, all I need you to say is that I seem like a great guy. Got it? Or a great man. And use a scrabble word like she would. Stupendous or something. This will sound great coming from you. I think she's going to like a child's opinion."

Bruce stared at me. "What?"

"Just try to say it, make it sound natural."

For a moment, the kid scrunched up his features, and he thought about it, still petting the goat. Slowly, he nodded. "I got it."

"Let's hear it."

He took a deep breath. "He is a—"

"Louder, kid," I urged. "We're not talking to the geese."

"Okay." Bruce took a deep breath and gestured to me. "This is—uh—this is a man-child—"

" What? " I demanded.

"I forgot the rest of the words," he admitted.

"That wasn't even the right way to say the words!" I ran my hand over my face. "Dude, what was that?"

"You're doing it wrong, Bruce," a little girl cut in, half a head taller than him. She fluffed out her dress. "I know what you want him to say and I want to be an actress and I should be the one who says it."

With a glance over my shoulder, I could see Piper making her way back to the petting zoo.

Shit .

"Okay, you say it, you get fifty bucks," I agreed.

She took a long time to clear her throat, and for some random reason, spoke in a British accent when she finally got the words out. "This is a stupid man-child—"

I bit back a curse. "Stupendous. I said stupendous. "

"I don't know what that means," she told me. "I thought it meant stupid."

"You know what?" I fished out two fifties and shoved them in the kids' hands. "Take this and just don't say anything."

Both swindlers beamed at me and walked over to the piglets while I muttered under my breath, rubbing my temples. I just lost a hundred bucks to two kids who called me a man-child. I made my way back to the fence, stepping over the kids, determined to duck under my boots.

"This is why I don't want kids," I muttered. "Unbelievable."

"Hey." Piper stepped up to the fence and held out the lemonade for me. "Did I just see you give kids some money?"

I took a long drink. "They scammed the fuck out of me."

"Oh, yeah." A giggle burst out of her. "Kids will do that."

We traded places, and I hung on the outside while Piper rested against the fence post, watching over the dozen or so kids that wandered around and annoyed the animals.

And Piper was so happy. For no reason.

"You want some of these?" I asked, passing the lemonade back to her.

"Children?"

"Yeah."

Piper laughed again. "Yes, I want some."

"You know how much they cost?"

"I am aware children are expensive, yes," Piper said, amused.

"And they don't follow instructions at all."

She poked me in the side. "You could connect with them on that."

I rolled my eyes and stole the lemonade back, hanging on the fence post. Why she'd ever want one, I couldn't understand. Without children, she could travel all she wanted and do whatever she wanted. What was the point? What was the lure?

Maybe she just wanted a messy house to clean.

"Ms. Fontaine?" A little girl moseyed up to Piper with a bunny in her arms that another volunteer helped her with. The bunny didn't look exactly thrilled about being held with one arm around his middle, both of his feet sticking out. The little girl had stalks of hay in her blonde hair. There were clear signs of a struggle.

"Hey, hey, hey," Piper murmured, kneeling next to her. Gently, she helped prop the bunny up and showed the little girl had to hold him properly so he wouldn't be a potential aerial hazard.

I rested against the fence, watching them. "Wow, did you get into a cage match with a rabbit?"

The little girl ignored me, but Piper smiled wide.

"Looks like you collected all the hay in the petting zoo." I grinned.

With a tiny frown, the little girl squinted at me. "Can you be quiet?"

"What?"

"I am trying to talk—to talk with her." She held up a little hand to show I needed to stop talking when I tried to explain. "Please be quiet. Be respectful. Remember the five Rs? Do you know the five Rs? I don't think you do. If you were in my class, my teacher would tell you to be quiet or go out to the hall."

I stared at her, dumbfounded while Piper snorted into laughter. I narrowed my eyes. "Hey, I started talking to her first, kid. Be grateful I'm letting you have this time. I don't like to share."

" Adam, " Piper admonished me, like I was the one being rude.

"And you don't like to be quiet either. Shhh." The little girl held up a finger to her mouth and pointed it at me, more of a mean jab than anything else, before she leaned towards Piper and started whispering to her again.

What the hell?

Right behind her, Piper shot me a secret smile while she helped the little girl with the bunny. I couldn't believe it. I lost my time hanging out with Piper to some grimy kid who couldn't even hold a rabbit right.

The more I glanced between Piper and the little girl, deep in conversation about the evolutionary benefits of rabbit feet for some reason, the more a weird feeling settled over me. They looked so much alike. I mean, the little girl had dust smeared up to her eyebrows and hay poking off her clothes, but the blonde hair and the way she snapped at me was just uncanny.

If I didn't know any better, she could've been Piper's sister.

Or Piper's daughter.

My eyebrows furrowed as Piper murmured something to the little girl and she giggled, petting the bunny, now calm in her arms. Yeah. She could be Piper's daughter.

She could be my daughter.

I had never, ever wanted kids in my entire life. Maybe part of it was I didn't want to put my kid through the same thing my parents had done. Maybe part of it was how appealing the bachelor lifestyle was. But I always thought about kids in a kind of abstract way, somebody's kids, blurry motions out of sight, out of mind. I never thought about them like this .

Like little blonde kids with Piper's gray eyes. A daughter rolling her eyes at me the same way her mom did. A son walking with Piper, hand in hand down the beach to check out some turtles on vacation.

"Holy shit," I whispered, still gripping the fence.

"Adam?" Piper called to me.

I blinked. "What?"

"Can you grab a napkin from my purse?" Piper asked, amused. "She's got a little—you know—all over—" She motioned up to her eyebrows, trying not to laugh.

I cleared my throat and stepped back to her purse, rifling through until I found the napkins.

"Thanks." Piper smiled and cleaned up the girl as best as she could before she walked back over to the rabbit pen. "I'll text June. I think the wipe station's out." She whipped out her phone and glanced back at me. "Are you okay?"

"What? Yeah. Of course. Why?"

"I don't know. You look kind of…?"

"Cool as shit?" I plastered the grin on my face and tugged the jacket. "Don't be jealous, ice princess."

Piper laughed and I grabbed the lemonade back from her, still off-balanced.

The more time I spent with her, the more I could feel something changing deep inside me, deeper than bone. I didn't even recognize myself anymore.

And maybe…that wasn't a bad thing.