“How can you be hungry? You ate your weight in waffles an hour ago.”
She shrugs, making the turn toward the stairs, clearly headed for the kitchen. “I don’t know. Guess doing math burned it off.” She starts walking away. A second later, I hear her call out, “I need more fuel for Social Studies. What do we have?”
I run through the mental list of things in the fridge. Then I cut out all the items I know she’ll reject. “There’s a big container of grapes on the top shelf. All washed and ready to eat.”
“That works.”
A few minutes later, I watch her walk by a second time, the entire tub in hand, as she makes her way to her room again.
I’m about to get back to work when I hear the front door open, and another distraction enters.
“All done with your interview?” I shout.
“Yep.” I can hear him pull the door shut behind him, before he proceeds to greet each of the dogs all vying for his attention. Including Hannah, who usually takes weeks to warm up to people, sometimes years with men. “How’s your work coming along?” he calls back, his footsteps already moving up the stairs and toward me.
“It’s coming,” I nod, wondering if now would be a good time to take a break. It feels like a good time. Even though I still have at least a dozen emails I haven’t even looked at yet. “What’s next on your agenda?” Maybe his answer will help me decide.
“I have a few calls to make.” He makes his way over to my desk to plant a kiss on the top of my head before he goes on. “Figured I’d go sit out on the dock. It’s nice out and that way I won’t distract you. I know trying to write with someone else’s voice in the background competing with your own isn’t always easy.”
“Oh. Okay.” Guess that settles that. No break it is. Probably smarter anyway.
He tugs my hair gently, just enough to get me to lean back which he promptly takes advantage of by leaning in for another kiss. This one is less g-rated than the first one, but just as sweet.
Then, before I know it, I’m alone again.
Work beckons and I wind up immersed in correspondence until the next round of distractions. For this one, Sloan and Knox manage to show up simultaneously.
“I’m hungry.”
“Again?”
“I could eat.”
I see I’m going to lose this one. “Maybe it’s lunch time. Is it lunch time?” I check the clock on my computer before either of them has a chance to answer. “Alright, it’s lunch time. Let’s eat.”
Lunch turns into a drawn-out event, thanks to a wide variety of cravings between the two. Me, I would have been fine with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich today. Not them. They want to cook. Multiple dishes. Including one that requires from scratch dough. Three different types of pizza pockets, one curry quinoa dish and a fruit and baked brie platter later, and everyone is stuffed beyond reason.
We’ve also taken a meal that could have been prepared and eaten in thirty minutes and turned it into a three-hour event. Not including cleanup which I notice was mostly done as they were cooking, thank God.
“That was fun,” Sloan remarks. “Can I count it as school? Knox showed me how to fold the pizza pockets to keep the cheese from oozing out, so I definitely learned something.”
“Sure,” I remark dryly, getting up to start clearing the table. “Might as well. Not like you have time for anything else now.” I’m starting to see there was a masterplan at work all along. “Better go get ready for dance. We have to leave in twenty minutes.”
“How long is dance?” Knox asks joining my efforts and grabbing the last of the dishes.
“Three hours tonight. It’s rehearsal time for their performance group.”
“Perfect.”
I turn over my shoulder to look at him. “Perfect for what?”
“There’s this thing I wanted to do with you and dance gives us the perfect window to do it in.”
I can feel my face twist up a bit. I’m not big on walking into things blindly. I like to know ahead of time what I’m doing so Ican opt out with appropriate notice. “That’s very vague. Care to elaborate?”
He grins, taking the plates I’m holding and moving past me to the sink. “Nope.”
“Could you anyway?”
