Thad glanced at Jake from the corner of his eye, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on Jake’s thigh. “Will your mother let me?”
Jake gave him a quick smile. “If I beg her pretty please and promise to wash the dishes, she might.”
“Call me when you get home and we’ll see,” Thad said.
Jake thought that sounded like a good plan, but he knew his mother well enough to know he couldn’t just ask her the moment she picked him up from school. No, he got in the car and sat quietly as she chatted about her morning, nodding in all the right places so she thought he was listening. He didn’t complain about having to go to the dentist, or about being bored as he sat in the waiting room for his turn. Afterward, when she asked did he mind if they ran a few errands, he gave her a wide-eyed, innocen
