“Anything you want, I’m totally down, baby girl.” He throws his voice low, trying to sound like those daddy kink guys on TikTok and failing miserably, mostly because of his baby face. He doesn’t even have to shave more than once a week.

If we were out and some guy approached with that sort of line, Holly would throw her head back and laugh in his face, but because it’s Jacob and she’s kind, she won’t completely destroy him. “Good try, kid, but I heard you right the first time. I just tried to give you a way out by pretending I didn’t. And if I need dick, it’s going to be from someone I don’t have to teach. Ain’t nobody got time for that!” she jokes. “And also, life lesson number 512, when someone says,” she adds a bit of Samuel L Jackson to her tone, “‘wish a muthafucka would,’ it’s never an invitation, no matter how much you’d like it to be.” She punches her palm with her balled-up fist, “I wish. Smack. A muthafucka. Smack. Would. Smack.”

It sounds much more threatening this time, as she intends, and though I know she wouldn’t actually strike Jacob, she does hit him where it hurts.

His pride.

Jacob’s jaw goes tight, but he smiles through it. Same as always, playing it off. “You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take. I’m gonna keep on aiming for this particular basket.” He dribbles an invisible ball, jumps, and shoots for the basket . . . Holly. “Swish.”

She doesn’t encourage him, but it’s hard not to appreciate his perseverance. She shakes her head, but her smile is enough for him to call it in his own favor. He grabs his paper from my hand, not caring that I haven’t even finished reading it, and heads toward the door.

“Take that by Grandpa, Jacob,” I order.

He shrugs on his way out. “Maybe.”

“Ah, alone at last,” Holly says as Jacob leaves. She plops down in my desk chair, spinning circles with her head thrown back to stare at the fluorescent lights. It makes me dizzy just to watch.

“What’re you doing here, Holls?” I ask as I pick my scalpel back up. I can work with her here. She’s used to it. I press the blade to Chad’s abdomen for the third time, hoping it’s the charm. I pause for a split second to make sure nothing else is going to interrupt me, but it’s all good this time, so I make my incision.

The chair continues spinning as she says, “Finished work—every last Gertrude and Harold fixed up with nowhere to go—so I thought I’d see if I could talk you into an after-work drink. My babysitter’s there ’till seven today.”