There was nowhere to sit and eat, so we walked on. Soon, I was holding two pretzels and the souvenir mug while Parker walked ahead with Mason.
My son was fascinated by everything—all the ornaments, the hand-dipped candles, and the traditional Christmas crafts. It felt strange to see him ask questions of someone else instead of me. For a moment, I allowed myself to daydream. Maybe, somehow, Mason and I would become friends. Real friends who hung out frequently. Then Parker would finally have a male role model around—something he hadn’t had since my grandfather passed away.
I smiled as Parker picked up a brightly painted wooden Santa. Mason said something I couldn’t catch. Parker nodded and pulled the string at the bottom. He laughed as the wooden Santa’s arms and legs moved.
Mason laughed too, and then turned to catch my eye and shoot me a grin.
My breath caught in my throat. God, that man had a great smile. And a glint in his eye that seemed to call my name. It also showed me that Mason wasn’t here because he wanted to be friends—at least not entirely.
I didn’t date, but I was around men all day. My diner served breakfast and lunch. The breakfast crowd was mostly retirees, but that didn’t stop some of the men from flirting like they were in their twenties. The lunch crowd was younger and included busy office workers, but they, too, seemed to think that a young blonde waitress was an easy target. At the call center, my coworkers were decent, in an overworked and underpaid way, but some of the men I talked to on the phone could be quite forward, to say the least.
So far, Mason didn’t seem to be like them at all. He wasn’t course or crude or insistent. But from time to time when he looked at me, something inside me knew. I hadn’t been on a date in years, but despite the loud, excitable child accompanying us—it kind of felt like I was on one now.
What I couldn’t figure out was why. Why me? Did men that handsome figure they could have any woman they happened across? If so, that made him a jerk. But Mason didn’t seem like a jerk.
And it left another possibility, one that bothered me far more: that maybe he felt sorry for me. Or for us.
Parker’s laughter caught my attention. He and Mason were crouched down in front of a friendly-looking golden retriever with a Santa cap on. Mason said something I couldn’t catch to the dog’s owner, an older man with a tight stocking cap over his bald head. The man nodded, and Mason pulled out his phone and peeled off one glove. Parker put his arm around the dog’s neck and Mason took a selfie of the three of them.
A moment later, they were both by my side. “Mom, Mason’s going to send you the picture.”
Mason swiped at his phone and handed it to me. “Put your number in there and I’ll send it.”
After handing the drink and pretzels off to Parker, I did just that. As I entered the digits with cold fingers, I tried to remember the last time I’d given my number to a man. It had to have been before Parker was born, so at least eight years.
Parker gave me back the boot mug and one pretzel, keeping the other one for himself as he dragged Mason over to a booth that sold cuckoo clocks. That left me one hand free to examine the picture Mason had sent. He and Parker had big smiles and pink noses as they beamed from either side of their new canine pal.
The weird thing was that Mason didn’t look bored. He didn’t look like he was wishing he was somewhere else. As I trailed after them, I couldn’t stop wondering about it. Surely a man like Mason had a slew of rich friends to spend time with. It was the last weekend before Christmas. Surely he had more important things to do.
But… maybe we were like his Christmas charity. He was a nice man—he probably wanted to do something nice for us. He’d been inside our place, he knew we didn’t have a lot. Even now as I watched, he reached for his wallet. Parker was holding a little wooden reindeer and making it dance across the edge of the booth. Mason looked back at me and caught my eye. Then he tilted his head at Parker and the wooden toy.
I shook my head, and mouthed, “We’re good.”
He nodded and gave me a little shrug that seemed to say, “Can’t hurt to ask.”
And that was true—for him. He lived in a world where if you wanted something, you bought it. You didn’t need to save up for it. Or find a cheaper version. That was our world, not his.
Drinks and pretzels were one thing, but I didn’t want Parker to get used to it. Mason wasn’t our fairy godmother. Odds were we wouldn’t ever see him again after today. That thought didn’t sit well, but I was a realist, and usually, I tried to live in the moment. So the thing to do was to enjoy spending a rare morning off with my son and the fascinating man who actually seemed to be having a good time, too.
Right now, that man was holding up a metallic green and purple dragon that definitely looked out of place among the handmade products. “Think this would look good on your Christmas tree?” he asked Parker.
Parker turned his head from side to side as he thought it over. “Yeah, I guess. But I like the way our tree looks with the stuff we made.”
My heart filled with pride. I didn’t have a lot of extras to offer my son, but he liked the traditions we’d made together.
“So do I,” Mason said, and they moved onto the next booth.
After the large crowds and hustle and bustle at the Christmas Market, the sidewalk by the river was quiet. A bit colder and windier, but the only noise came from the cars on the nearby bridges that crossed the river.
I leaned against the railing, looking down at the river below. Though I didn’t come to the Loop too often, I liked how the river cut through the city. All these skyscrapers and streets that crisscrossed to form the city blocks, but the river cut through all of that. I tried to imagine what it would be like for someone who worked in the building behind me to look out their window and see the traffic stopped by the drawbridge going up.
“Don’t go too far,” I called to Parker, and he nodded, zooming back a little closer. I kept a close eye on him, but there wasn’t anyone else around. During a weekday, there would be people everywhere, but not on a Sunday. Now Parker leaned against the metal railing a little way down for us. “I think there’s a duck down there, Mom.”
I squinted, but didn’t see anything. Still, looking at the water a good two stories below us was suddenly easier than looking at the man next to me. A man I still couldn’t quite figure out.
“He’s a good kid.” Mason’s voice was soft and reflective.
The smile that formed on my lips was automatic. I happened to think he was, too. “You’re good with kids.”
“I don’t get to spend much time with them.”
“Then you’re a natural.”
“Maybe Parker’s just easy to get along with.”
For some reason, that made me laugh. “Apparently, if the very first time you met him, you bought him expensive jewelry.”
He laughed, too, and when I looked up, his smile had reached his whiskey-colored eyes. “We men have to stick together. Christmas shopping’s not easy for us.” Mason reached his hand up toward my hair and then hesitated. When I didn’t say anything, he pushed my hair back, tucking it behind my ear. “You wore them.”
“Parker wanted me to.”
“I thought I saw a gleam earlier, but it’s hard to tell with the twenty-seven scarves you’re wearing.”