Angel

5 - Jeremy

I'd been nervous all morning.

That was a lie. I'd been nervous since the day I'd asked Ethan's oncologist to submit a request to the Wish Mission, but it had worsened only a few days later when I got the call back that he'd been accepted.

Days.

Not weeks, like I'd thought. Not a month. Within days of submitting the request, I'd gotten a call from a woman named Misha to set up a meeting with one of their Wish-Granters. That kind of turnaround should have been impressive, but all it did was remind me they worked with kids on a time limit, so they probably had to be fast.

But the moment I saw her, those nerves disappeared.

"Well, look at you! You must be Ethan."

"Yes, Miss," Ethan said politely, extending his hand. "Nice to meet you. I like your shoes."

The woman looked pleasantly stunned as she crouched slightly to shake his hand, glancing at me with one of those looks that was meant to make me feel good about my parenting abilities and it absolutely, one hundred percent did. Though, some of that good feeling might have been because she was delightfully pretty. She seemed to be a few years younger than me, with perfectly styled curls that fell softly against her shoulders and an impeccably stylish outfit that wouldn't have been out of place on Sex and the City or something.

"What a charmer," she said, half-hiding a smile before turning back to Ethan. "Thank you, handsome. Welcome to the Wish Mission."

I almost laughed as that familiar bashful smirk crossed his face, the kind a guy gets after a pretty woman compliments him. Ethan had always been a charming kid, but I'd never seen him react like that. Just my luck that his first crush would be on the Wish Mission lady.

"And you must be Ethan's dad," she said, straightening back up. "Mr. Whitlock?"

"Just Jeremy, please," I said, taking my turn to shake her delightfully soft hand. My kid seemed to have good taste.

"Jeremy," she repeated. "It's fantastic to meet you."

"Thanks for getting us in so quickly," I said.

"Oh, it was no problem at all," she said cheerfully. "I know everyone was absolutely dying to meet our new friend Ethan here!"

She realized what she'd said before I did, her eyes widening and her mouth dropping open so that she looked like a fish, though she was still a pretty good-looking fish. Ethan didn't seem to notice the slip-up, thankfully, and I tried to pull the old family tradition of "pretending I hadn't heard that" by chuckling loudly.

"Well, I'm looking forward to working with you," I said. "Are you our, uh... Wish-Granter?"

"Oh, no, I'm--"

"That would be me."

The woman cringed visibly, glancing behind me. I turned to see another very pretty woman, this one with dark, pin-straight hair and a sharp-looking skirt-suit. Her heels clicked dully against the standard-issue grey carpet as she walked towards us. As she glanced at the first woman with a look that showed she very much had heard the slip-up about people dying to meet the dying kids, I felt all those nerves return.

"Thank you, Kennedy," she said flatly. "I'll take it from here."

"Sure," Kennedy said, so brightly that it was obviously fake. "It was very nice to meet you, Ethan. I'm sure we'll see you around!"

"I hope so," Ethan said, sounding almost disappointed.

Kennedy smiled encouragingly at me, then made her way towards the reception desk. The other woman ignored me, looking directly at Ethan.