“Miss, I’m sorry about that. Are you okay?” Someone interrupted them, half-bent over, on Jia’s right: a young mother, open-necked sleeveless white polo, slim-fitting Capri-length flat front chinos, slim-heeled sandals.

“Did she say she was okay?” her sockless, loafers-clad husband, hovering next to her, asked almost at the same time.

“We should have kept the kids on the other side …” from voices of other young parents.

With a sigh, reluctantly Jia tore her eyes away from Tiler, and looked up. She shielded her eyes from the glare of the afternoon sun. “I’m okay. The kids …” Her peripheral vision caught sight of Carl, the guy who’d fixed her smoothie earlier, and who’d apparently bolted over to check on her, also. He looked deathly worried. She turned to give him a quick, tight smile.

“Umm, yeah that was our son, I think. My husband and I saw it happen …” the young mother drew her attention again, and was looking anxiously all over Jia’s face, her shoulders, elbows, scanning for any obvious injuries.

“We’re very sorry, Nathan runs into everything, unfortunately,” her husband added, one hand rubbing on the neck of his anxious wife, still half-bent over next to Jia. He shot a quick glance at his buddy, who was hovering along with the rest of the parents, apparently, of the kids running around. “Brent, would you please help corral the rugrats … before someone gets hurt?”

His wife continued to apologize to Jia. Seeing that others wanted to check on Jia, and still perplexed about having been pushed away by Jia after she’d caught the blonde, Tiler stood up, moving away as some of the other parents crowded in again, expressing their concern, apologizing for their kids.

What I can’t figure out is why she started to push away from me? Did she think I was trying to do something else? Make a pass at her? Or maybe she didn’t like the idea of someone like me holding her so closely like that.  Hmmm … that could be it. She’s straight. Has to be. There was a hot, shared moment, but that’s happened before with straight chicks. Not as hot a moment as the one with her, though. Did I make her uncomfortable by holding her so close? Her eyes were telling me things, I thought … Tiler turned around slowly and started to walk away, lost in thought.