“Hi, Jenna! It’s so nice to meet you. Hold on a second.” She touched the screen, obviously muting it because we watched her silently yell, and then his dad appeared. He was handsome, like a slightly heavier, more distinguished, less rugged version of Liam.
“Hi, Dad. This is Jenna. Jenna, these are my parents, Patty and Mike.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Lamonti, it’s so nice to meet you.”
“Stop with that nonsense. It’s Patty and Mike. What did my son cook for you? How was it?” his dad asked.
I laughed. Patty was still beaming at us and Mike was eyeing my plate on the bottom of the screen. I started answering, “Salmon with—” but Patty nudged Mike’s shoulder.
“Mike, cut it out. They didn’t call to report on dinner.”
“It was delicious, though,” I said.
“We called because Jenna had a great idea, and I couldn’t wait to tell you.”
Patty clapped her hands together and leaned toward the screen.
“Ready for this?” Liam said. “You name your ice cream shop...Scoops and Ladders.”
“Like Chutes and Ladders?” Patty looked intrigued.
“Ice cream and board games.” Liam said.
“We could have checkerboard tables,” Mike boomed.
“With checker and chess pieces,” Patty added.
“And all different games to play.”
I gasped as another idea came to me. “There’s that outdoor game called Ladder. If you have space outside, you can do that too.”
“Yes!”
“We can have that beanbag game too.”
“Cornhole, absolutely.”
They yelled out ideas, piggybacking off each other in beautiful chaos.
“Can you make some of the tabletops a Chutes and Ladders board?” Liam asked.
“That’s trademarked, but we can make our own inspired by it,” Mike said.
“With an ice cream theme to the board!” I added.
“Yes!”
“Okay guys,” Liam interrupted. “We’re going to go now.”
“Wait, we barely got to talk to Jenna,” Patty started.
“We’ll call again soon.”
“But—”
“Mom. We’ll call again. We’ll even visit soon. But we’re hanging up now so we can continue our date without my parents.”
“Fine. Enjoy the rest of your evening. And?—”