that exact thing to someone else. He knew the timing of my joke, and he was waiting for me to say it so that he could laugh for me.
"The hedgehogs in your book wear clothes?" Drew asked. (I assumed his name was Drew since he had said 'Captain Drew' earlier.)
"Yeah, I mean, I don't really talk about it, but yeah, they do have clothes. When I imagine how they live, it's with clothes on. I'll have the illustrator draw them that way. Kind of like Beatrix Potter's animals."
"Or Looney Tunes or DuckTales," he said. "Lots of cartoon animals have clothes.
"Bugs and Daffy don't have clothes." I said, thinking of Looney Tunes.
"No, but Elmer and Porky do. And… Yosemite Sam."
I smiled. "Yosemite Sam's a man," I said.
Mac laughed even though he wasn't quite following us. He had gotten distracted by the boat which was drifting closer to the dock again.
"What's the book about?" Drew asked.
"What? Hedgehogs."
"No, you already said that. I meant what do the hedgehogs do?"
"Oh, all sorts of stuff. There are other animals, too. The badger has a bakery. It's a town with all sorts of little creatures. It's just that the hedgehogs are the main characters."
"Do they have names?" he asked.
"Of course. Timmy and Tommy and Tess."
"Timmy, Tommy, and who?"
"Tess," I repeated. "Those are the kids. Mac likes them because they have all sorts of adventures and get into a little trouble." I winked at Mac who reared back dramatically as if passing out.
"And Tommy shot a bow and arrow in a contest one time, and shewwww—" Mac made a dramatic noise as he picked up his bow, squinted, and pretended to shoot an arrow off the dock.
Drew laughed at Mac. It was a good-natured chuckle like he was laughing with him and not at him.
"I would really like to read this book," Drew said.
"My mom has forty and twenty books full of it," Mac said. "You can read the one where the frog's tongue got stuck on the ice, and he was like ooh, ooh, ooh…" Mac wiggled around, indicating what a bind the frog had been in.
"There was a scene in one of them where a frog got his tongue stuck to the fencepost," I explained.
But we were distracted. Mac was getting to the edge of the dock, closer to the boat.
"Can he come onto the boat?" Drew asked, coming to our side again.
"Sure!" Mac said.
"Wait, baby, I don't know," I said.
"You could come too," Drew offered easily. "If no one's looking for you right now. I can take you guys on a quick boat ride. I've had an odd afternoon, and I could use the distraction."
"I guess you have had an odd afternoon if this wound up in my hand," I said, raising the fist that was holding onto the ring.
"Yeah," he agreed, nodding at me. "Odd is an understatement. Talking to little Mac about hedgehogs seems like the best thing I could possibly do with my life right now."
I laughed and stepped toward the end of the dock. "All right, but we can't go far," I said.
"Yessss," Mac said, getting to the very edge of the dock excitedly. He made little jumping motions as Drew came to the side to help him onto the boat.
"Don't jump off or anything," Drew said to Mac after he set him down on the boat.
"I won't, don't worry," Mac assured him.
"He won't," I said. "He goes on a boat all the time."
Drew turned as I was saying that and reached out to help me on. I didn't need assistance, but I was already headed that way, going toward Mac, when Drew turned and reached out to catch me. He put one hand on my waist and the other on my arm, steadying me.
I tried not to flinch, but I stiffened slightly because my body reacted to him. He was handsome and he smelled nice, and I felt that same dangerous, gut-tingling attraction I had from way back with Bradley.
"Oh, I d-didn't need any help, okay, thanks. Thank you." I reached out to try to give him back his ring.
"No, no, no," he said. "If I take it from you, I'll just toss overboard. I'm not kidding. Please take it. Sell it. Save it. Give it away. I don't care."
I put the ring in my pocket because I could tell how serious he was about me keeping it. My pants were loose-fitting, and I made sure the ring was situated at the very bottom of my pocket so it