Free Courting Mrs. McCarthy by Ian Thomas Malone

had withheld information from Griffin. He said nothing of his break-up with Sarah even though word could easily reach him. It was less likely that he would find out about babysitting, but Nathan still felt uneasy that these decisions were coming to him with such ease. For someone who didn’t like to lie, he was doing it at an alarming rate.
    After a few episodes of mindless television, Nathan told Randall that it was time for bed, forgetting about his bedtime ultimatum. He didn’t object, which showed Nathan that he had guessed the timeframe reasonably well. Thankfully Randall did not ask for a story. He did not appear to have many books in his room.
    Nathan returned to the TV room to sit with April. He wondered if he should ask Tiffany to join them, but he decided not to disturb her. He imagined that he wouldn’t have wanted to be disturbed by a babysitter if he was her age either.
    April seemed happy to have him back in the room. “Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked suddenly.
    Nathan was taken aback by the question, but her forwardness caused his reservations to dissipate. “No. I did, but we broke up last week.”
    This drew April’s interested. Nathan had forgotten how much kids loved drama. “Oooh,” she said. “What was her name, and why did you guys break up? Did she dump you?”
    Nathan laughed. His cousins had never taken an interest in his love life and he was slightly amazed by how intrigued April was. “Her name is Sarah, and I’m not really sure. It was kind of mutual. These things happen,” he added, not really aware of how philosophical that might sound to an eight-year-old.
    April maintained a keen interest. “Were you in love?”
    Nathan laughed again, though it sounded more defensive than the last one. He had just realized that she was the first person he had talked to about his break-up with Sarah, and he’d done it with such ease. He had second thoughts about his decision to keep the information from Griffin and Mrs. Buchanan.
    “No. Teenagers don’t fall in love.” He realized how pessimistic that sounded and added, “Well, not me at least. There will be plenty of time for love later on.” April seemed skeptical, but Nathan got her to drop it by mentioning that their show was back on. He wasn’t sure if April qualified as a peculiar child or not.
    When nine-thirty rolled around, Nathan forced April to go to bed. She didn’t want to at all, but he needed to study and was getting sick of the Disney Channel. As he wished her good night, he walked by Tiffany’s room and told her that if she was going to stay up, she should refrain from making noise so that her siblings wouldn’t get jealous. He wasn’t sure why she should get preferential treatment, but he wasn’t feeling the desire to be more authoritative.
    He didn’t bother to make sure there was no noise coming out of the bedrooms. Nathan’s aunt often berated him for letting his cousins stay up late, but he wasn’t too worried about the McCarthys. He wanted to watch TV, but he made the responsible decision to get some studying in before finals. The weekend was not likely to have anything major going on, but he wanted to spend some time with Griffin, and at the library with Mrs. Buchanan.
    The McCarthy household made for a pretty decent study place. He didn’t text Griffin out of guilt and didn’t have his phone constantly buzzing from Sarah anymore, which gave him a newfound desire to actually put some effort into his studies in the house that belonged to the actual woman of his dreams.
    Much like his varied interests outside of school, Nathan was a pretty well-rounded student. His grades were never phenomenal, but there was no subject that he was downright awful in either. His guidance counselor always told him that he could do better in school, but Nathan did not have much of a desire to push himself farther in his schoolwork.
    He was buried deep in pre-calculus when Jacqueline McCarthy came through the door at fifteen