“You should try it sometime.”
“Perhaps I may.”
“Want to try it now?”
Oh no. She had to go in!
“I really have to work. I’m sorry. Maybe another time?”
Abbey was about to walk into the doorway when she stopped. Max said, his voice disappointed, “Okay.” It was a quiet “okay,” and she could tell, for whatever reason, he really wanted Nick to try it. She wondered if he’d be satisfied if she did it with him. Maybe during her lunch break, he could show her how to slide. But, the reason that Abbey had stopped was because when Max said “okay,” like he had, the clicking stopped.
There was quite a long moment of hesitation as she waited to hear what would happen next, and then she heard the squeak of a chair. It sounded like Nick had stood up. She should’ve just gone in right then, but something held her back. It was almost like she could feel Nick’s deliberation all the way through the wall. Or maybe she was just hoping that he was deliberating. He was probably trying to figure out how to get Max out of the room. At any time in the conversation, however, he could’ve said, “Let’s go find your mother,” but he hadn’t. Nick had answered Max’s questions, even if they were short answers.
“I suppose I can take a quick break,” she heard Nick say, and she covered her mouth in astonishment. Was Nick Sinclair actually considering sliding around his house in his sock feet?
Abbey walked into the room. “Hi. I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know Max had wandered down here. Please, sit back down. I’ll take him back with me.”
“Mama! Mr. Sinclair is going to slide in his socks with me. He said he would.”
Abbey felt awful to have put both Nick and Max in this situation. She knew Nick had work to do, and she also had an inkling that, because he was thoughtful, he’d follow through with Max’s ridiculous request. She could feel the heat under her skin and the worry creeping into her stomach.
“You can call me Nick,” he said again, now standing beside Max. Nick’s eyes were curious, looking at her son—curious like they’d been when he’d looked at Abbey. The only difference, though, was that he wasn’t smiling. He was more cautious, almost too careful, like he was a little uncomfortable.
“You really don’t have to do this,” she said quietly to him as they followed Max out of the office.
“It’s fine.”
They walked in silence to the entrance of the house. All Abbey could think about was how preoccupied Nick had seemed this morning. He’d barely smiled. And how they were disrupting whatever it was he had been doing.
When they arrived at the entrance, Max stopped and bent down. He began untying Nick’s shoes. “Oh, honey.” Abbey tried to pull him up. Those shoes looked like they cost more than her monthly salary. “Nick can do that himself.”
“I’m just helping,” he said, tugging the laces from the wrong spot and causing them to knot.
“It’s okay,” Nick said, bending down and helping Max. He slipped his shoes off and set them aside.
There was something about seeing Nick assisting Max with the laces and now in his sock feet that made Abbey smile. Had he ever been allowed to do this kind of thing as a boy?
“Okay,” Max said with authority. “What you have to do is get a running start. Like this!” He took off from one side of the room. “Then, just stop real quick and you’ll start to slide.” He slid across the floor. “If you feel like you’re gonna fall, go down on your knees. Here, I’ll show you.” Max demonstrated the knee slide. “Think you can do it?”
The corners of Nick’s mouth were twitching just slightly, and Abbey wondered if he wanted to smile. Then, to her complete surprise, Nick took off across the room. Abbey watched him as he ran, his body moving effortlessly with every stride. He stopped and slid toward Max, coming to a stop in front of him.
Max let out a loud laugh, putting his hands on his knees and giggling uncontrollably. “Isn’t that fun?” Max said.
Nick laughed too. “Yes. Thank you for teaching me,” he said with happiness in his eyes. He walked over toward his shoes.
“Wait!” Max stood up.
Nick turned around.
“Let’s do it again but race this time.”
“Max, Nick has work he has to do.”
“Please?”
Abbey thought about how entertaining this was for Max, and a pang of guilt swelled in her gut. He was either at school where he had to sit at a desk most of the day, in their little apartment with no room to run around, or with her mother and Gramps, where he had no one to play with. He was craving interaction, attention from someone. While she didn’t want to bother Nick, she wished he would do this for Max’s sake.