Count On Me

Part Twenty One

A/N A quick update to thank you for all the interest and comments. This book is just ourside the top 100 in romance, which is a big thing for me. Hopefully a few quick posts will see me break that ceiling! Views, votes and comments really help, xxx

Chapter Twenty One

The Discovery Center had a few exhibitions; Nate loved the aggression of the Vikings, skipping through the exhibits with a grin on his face. What he lacked in understanding, he made up for with enthusiasm. Though Lizzie had noticed Oscar looking longingly at the door that led to the costumes of Star Wars display.

"You wanna go in there?"

He shrugged, "Nate's a bit young to enjoy that."

She brushed that off, "not at all. He'll love it...and I can tell that you will."

And so went another hour of boys enjoying their time. She liked Star Wars, but Oscar's insistence in pulling off the voice for every character as he passed the costume was above and beyond normal fandom, but it made her laugh. When they finally emerged into the dark damp evening, Oscar led them all to a cab, which took them to a diner not far from the hotel.

"They do THE best hotdogs here Nate."

Seven words guaranteed to make a little boy smile. Lizzie rolled her eyes as Oscar was swamped by the boy and catching her reaction he gave her an over cocky smile back.

But the diner he'd picked WAS spectacular, she had a huge sandwich filled with pickle and pastrami and a dozen other very American things. Washing it down with root beer, her new favourite drink. He sat opposite wrinkling his nose at that. She chuckled back, and so this non verbal teasing continued. Nate was gushing over the hot dog that was bigger than his head, and a treat of a fizzy drink, and the waitress refilled their drinks without them noticing, and it was yawns from the little man that made them check the time.

"I promised you a big ice cream, but I don't have to work tomorrow, so how about we go somewhere special for the biggest ice cream tomorrow?"

As Lizzie expected, Nate was torn, in her experience, children had no concept of tomorrow, he'd rather be sick and fall asleep in an ice-cream now...so Oscar pulled out his phone and showed him images of the biggest sundae that Lizzie thought she'd ever seen, and the boy was hooked.

Back at the hotel, the beers from the previous night were still in the fridge, but Oscar reached for Lizzie's arm as she started to take Nate to bed."Got some beers, but I'm going to order some wine from room service, ok?"

She nodded, "that's good."

Nate was in his pj's and tucked in bed within about fifteen minutes, and as she gave him a good night kiss, she heard a knock at the door. When she emerged, Oscar was wrestling with a champagne cork.

"That's not the wine I was thinking of."

He laughed, "determined that we don't have a crap night tonight. I'm sorry about last night."

Lizzie sighed, "don't apologise, you are right, we need to work things out, but it's so much easier to just bury your head in the sand."

He nodded, "that's usually my tactic too. But I've spent two days trying to work on a solution. Not sure whether anything will change, but I'm getting a call back tomorrow...that will shed some light. Can we not talk about it until then?"
Lizzie sighed with relief, "that sounds like a good plan."