“Not great. I have to go back to work.”

“But you just picked Sam up.”

“I know. But if I don’t fix this mess, I could lose my job. If they don’t break ground tomorrow on-site, as scheduled, Bill will have my ass. My parents are busy tonight, and I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency, but can you—”

“Sure, I’ll watch Sam. I’m pulling in now. I’ll be at your door in two minutes.” I parked in my usual spot, grabbed my backpack from the floor beside me and raced to his apartment. Ty had the door open by the time I knocked, so obviously freaked that I fought the urge to hug him.

“I appreciate this so much. He hasn’t had dinner and—”

“Relax, Ty. We’ve got this, right, buddy?”

“My name is Sam!” Then he low-fived me. “It’s okay, Dad.”

Ty paused at the door, studying the two of us, as I took my jacket off and hung it on the coatrack in the corner. Then a half smile stole across his face as I knelt to hug Sam and whisper a fresh dinosaur joke in his ear. He giggled and waved as his dad slipped out.

“So what’s your favorite thing to eat?” I asked, peering in the cupboard.

“Chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, pizza, hot dogs and orange Jell-O.”

“I’m not making all of that. We’d get sick.”

“Mac and cheese with hot dogs in it,” he tried.

Folding my arms, I offered my best let’s negotiate look. Possibly, I was overestimating Sam’s ability to read subtext. “I could be persuaded, if you eat some vegetables.”

A tiny frown pinched his brows together, so cute. “But they taste like evil.”

“And how would you know what evil tastes like?” It was all I could do not to laugh, which would ruin the serious tone of our discussion.

“Because I ate vegetables before.” That was such a reasonable and ironclad argument that I couldn’t shake it.

Still, I’d be a terrible babysitter if I agreed he could live on mac and cheese with hot dog pieces. “Well, that’s the deal, take it or leave it.”

“Will you put extra cheese in the macaroni?” Sam was being cagey.

I grinned at him. “Obviously. Two slices of American, extra gooey when it melts.”

“Okay.” He shook hands with me to seal the agreement.

Poking through the cabinets didn’t reveal many vegetables. I found a can of corn, peas and carrots, some frozen mixed veggies and half a pack of broccoli. So I lined it all up and showed Sam his choices.

“Which one of these do you like best?”

“Broccoli,” he said with the saddest face ever.

I gathered from his look that all veggies were some level of evil, and broccoli was just the least demonic in the gospel according to Sam. “That’s a very mature choice.”

He nodded like he totally knew what mature meant. Maybe he did. From what I’d seen, Ty didn’t skimp on vocabulary in their conversations.

“Dad puts cheese on it.”

I was hearing an awful lot about pasteurized dairy products. “So basically you’d eat a stick if someone put cheese on it.”

“Dunno. Maybe.”

So cute.

As Sam watched, I put away the losing veggies and got out a pot big enough to make Kraft blue box. I filled the pot with water, salted it and set it on the stove then located the hot dogs and sliced them up. His eyes widened when I put them in a skillet.

“What’re you doing?”

“Sautéing them.”

“Dad puts them in the microwave.”

“That doesn’t get your dogs crispy, my friend. It only makes them bloated.”

“What’s that?”

I puffed out my cheeks to show him. “This is.”

“Oh. Auntie Gloria gets that in her knees.”

“Ouch. That’s probably why she needs surgery.” I remembered Ty mentioning that as the reason she couldn’t watch Sam anymore.

At some point, I expected Sam would get bored watching me cook, but he followed me around the kitchen asking things like, why did I wait until the water was boiling so hard before adding the macaroni, why did I put the butter and milk in before the cheese powder, how come I was still cooking it when it looked done, why were the hot dogs so brown when I stirred them in. Since I was used to kids, it didn’t bother me, but he hardly seemed to breathe for the questions. As the final step, I thawed the broccoli and chopped it superfine, then stirred it into the casserole. That counted as a vegetable.

It was around seven by then, so I figured he must be starving. I definitely was. “Should we see how it turned out?”

“Yes!”

I served up two plates and poured us both cups of milk, then we sat down. All things considered, it wasn’t bad, though tailored to a kid’s palate. Head down, he ate with adorable gusto, like his dinner might disappear. For dessert, I gave him a cup of orange Jell-O, prepackaged and in the fridge. For an hour afterward, we played with trucks because as it turned out, the steamer trunk that doubled as a coffee table was also a toy box.

When he asked to watch TV, I gave him a suspicious look. “I don’t think so. If I called your dad, he’d say it was bath time, am I right?”

Sam angled the most angelic look imaginable up at me. “I dunno. I’m only four. I can’t tell time yet.”

“Nice try. I know what time small humans go to bed. To the bath with you!”

That was an insane, shambolic affair. By the time I got him washed, rinsed and dried, I was a sopping mess, and since I’d worked at day care and had my practicum today as well, every muscle in my body hurt. But I kept my smile bright for Sam. Pretending to be a monster, I chased him down the hall. He had the master bedroom, like the one Lauren and I shared upstairs. Down here, half the space contained a twin bed and kid’s furniture while the rest provided a play area. Since it was a three-bedroom, Ty was using one as his own room and the other seemed to be a studio, complete with computer desk and drafting table.

“Okay, jammies on, teeth brushed. Now let’s find Goodnight Moon—”

“Where’s Mr. O’Beary?” He tugged on the bottom of my shirt.

“Hmm?” I shoved damp hair away from my face as I turned back his covers. His dark blue sheets were spangled with silver crescent moons and five-point stars trailing golden dust.

“He’s my friend. I can’t sleep without him.”

“Give me a minute here.” I’d definitely seen him hauling the plushie around, so I’d recognize it when I spotted it.

As I dug through crates of toys, Sam transformed from adorable kid to shrieking demon. I couldn’t understand more than one word in ten due to both volume and sobbing, but if he kept it up, his head might explode. The tantrum started with wailing, then escalated to Sam flinging himself on his face and pounding with hands and feet. When he banged his head on the floor, I picked him up, but that only made it worse. He fought me, weeping so hard that his nose ran and he smeared snot all over my already wet shirt. With him yelling in my ear, I could hardly think where to look. My head throbbed in cadence with each shrill cry, scraping raw over my nerves. He clung to my side while I stumbled around the apartment, turning everything inside out. It took me forty-five minutes to find that damned bear, still in his backpack from nap time at school, left beside the door. If only I’d thought of that sooner. Still sniffling, he climbed into bed, strangling Mr. O’Beary with his love.

Finally, sweet, blessed silence. I’d dealt with difficult kids before but never one who switched so fast from pure sunshine to a monsoon of misery. Gathering the tatters of my composure, I wiped his face with a damp cloth. My hands shook in reaction when I pulled up his covers, and a steel band tightened around my skull, a souvenir of the fit. I also had a fierce kink between my shoulders from hauling him around for an hour. This felt almost like a hangover, though it was emotional, not physical.

He spoke in a tiny, chastened voice. “Are you mad, Nadia?”

“No. Just tired.”

Then I leaned down and hugged him, so he’d know I meant it. By this point, he was exhausted, but he clung to my hand as I read Goodnight Moon. Before I finished the story, he passed out, eyes still red and swollen. For a few seconds, I stayed on the side of his bed, afraid to move, afraid I’d jar him awake and start the noise again.

Eventually, I stole out of the room, swallowing a huge sigh. My clothes were still wet, and I was shivering. Hoping Ty wouldn’t mind, I went to his room and opened the closet door. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, right? No snooping, I grabbed the first shirt I found and changed into it. White dress shirt, good quality. It didn’t cover as much of me as it would have a smaller woman. Even my socks were wet, so I hung my clothes to dry in the bathroom. Not for the first time, I wished these units had a built-in washer and dryer.

Afterward, I arched my back and stretched. Sounds like my spine’s made of bubble wrap. I assessed the apartment, wincing. So trashed. I’d dumped just about everything Sam owned onto the floor. My body shouted at me to collapse, but I couldn’t. Not yet. Mustering the last of my reserves, I set the bathroom to rights, tidied up the kitchen and put Sam’s toys away.

There, that’s fine.

When Ty’s key rattled in the door at ten-fifteen, I was barely awake, snuggled on the couch beneath the chenille throw. He stepped inside, shoulders slumped in exhaustion. Man, I knew exactly how he felt. The scruff on his jaw said he hadn’t shaved in two or three days, and his hair was rumpled. A crooked tie spoke of frustration.

“Did you solve the problem?” I managed a smile.

“Yeah. I found the permits, thank God. I knew we had them. Everything go okay here?” he asked, glancing around the room warily.