"No, I don't want to hang out at all, to be perfectly honest. You don't get it, and I'm not going to spoon feed it to you, so... I think you should just go."
"Are you breaking up with me?" he asked in disbelief. "Willow, just tell me what I did wrong. I won’t do it again. I wasn't trying to piss you off, I was just trying to be affectionate with my girlfriend."
Rounding on him, she said more loudly than she intended, "Yeah, well, I don't want your affection. I just want to be left alone!"
Hurt flashed across his face as he stared at her, then he nodded, turned around, and finally left her bedroom.
She suspected he wouldn’t be back, and strangely the thought didn't make her sad.
Instead she felt relief.
Ethan crouched down behind his couch, one hand on his gun, his other hand closed except for his index finger, moving to his lips, signaling silence.
Beside him, his daughter nodded and pressed her back up against the back of the couch.
An obnoxious beeping noise sounded from across the room and Alison’s eyes widened. Then, producing a blue and silver walkie-talkie from her side pocket, she pushed the button, making its own loud beep, and stage-whispered, “Are you in position?”
“Yep,” the boy on the other end said simply.
“Agent Gru, can you see the suspect?” she asked Ethan.
Stealthily leaning around the edge of the couch, he stayed there for a few seconds before dramatically jumping back behind the couch.
“I’ve got eyes on the suspect,” he verified, his voice dropping gravelly low. “He almost spotted me.”
Her eyes went wide with an exaggerated look of horror. “We’ll have to be more careful.”
He nodded his agreement, extracting a little green disc from his pocket and sliding it into his colorful weapon. Then he pulled back the neon chamber and angled his Nerf gun upward. “I’m ready when you are, Agent Jessie.”
Nodding solemnly, she said, “You go first, I’m right behind you.”
Creeping up to the edge once more, he glanced back at Alison, giving her a nod, then jumped out from behind the couch, aimed his Nerf gun, and shot the little disc at the empty diaper box across the room, a dastardly face drawn on a piece of computer paper and taped to the front.
The little disc, unsurprisingly, did not knock the box over.
The little boy on the other side of the room “tackled” the box, and “Agent Jessie” went charging over there, her plastic hand cuffs at the ready.
To the side of the box, a row of 6 Barbie and Ken dolls were seated, piles of play money in their laps.
“You’re not robbing these nice people today, Dirty Dan,” his daughter stated, holding her handcuffs up victoriously. “Where’s your accomplish?”
“Accomplice,” Ethan corrected, chuckling lightly.
“I see her!” her playmate said, pointing at the giant My Size Barbie doll propped up against the opposite side of the couch.
“Dirty Debbie!” Alison exclaimed, running over to the doll, and calling back to the boy to “contain the witness.”
“Detain…never mind,” Ethan said, letting it go.
Alison was slapping the cuffs on Barbie, who of course smiled unapologetically.
Ethan made his way over to retrieve the little green disc before that one got lost like the other one had. They were little and plastic, but they still packed a punch, so the kids weren’t allowed to play with them unless they were being closely supervised.
The little boy, ready to move on since they busted the criminal, jumped up and down and said, “Now what should we play?”
“I still want to play cops,” Alison stated.
“Okay. But not another bank robber. What else should we do?”