“You really don’t have to do it. Skylar’s supposed to…she’s meant to help. Used to love helping. Now it’s like juggling flaming chainsaws just to get her to pick up her shit.”
“She’s lucky to have you looking out for her.”
Nick snorted at the idea. “Don’t say that to her face unless you want her to rip it off.” Okay, she wasn’t a bad kid. There hadn’t been any run-ins with the law. He hadn’t found boys, booze, or worse in her room. A few of her teachers even liked her. But he couldn’t stop worrying that if he let up for a second, she’d slip the same as the rest of the Iverson clan. That fall didn’t have padded floors.
A pile of carrot skins had built up on the side of the cutting board. Nick blinked, realizing she’d already peeled all the carrots. Damn, that was fast. Emma pushed back her sleeves and lined up the first carrot.
“Skylar should be learning basic cooking so she doesn’t starve. Skylar!”
“It’s okay. I want to. It’s nice to get to cook in such a wide-open space.” She glanced around the kitchen which was a handful of counters and a stove.
“I keep thinking an island would be better, but unless there’s a construction fairy I don’t know about…” He rubbed the back of his neck so fast that when he touched the stove’s door handle, a spark launched through him.What am I doing?The meatloaf’s fine.He shouldn’t be looming over her shoulder while she held sharp objects.
It wasn’t that it felt weird having a woman in the house. It was weird how normal it felt. He’d taken the rag from her without question, as if he knew it’d be there. Nick needed a distraction, then a drink. “Skylar!”
“What. Do. You. Want?” she shouted, pushing the kitchen door to match each word.
Nick didn’t rise to the bait. “You got homework?”
Her childish antics withered instantly. “It’s…it’s nothing. Just some worksheets. And we have a guest. Isn’t it good manners to entertain her first?”
Crossing his arms, Nick glared down at the wayward teen. “Homework comes before good manners.”
Her eye roll could have caused a tsunami.
“Why don’t you get your books and study at the table? That way you can both entertain our guest and not flunk out of school dooming yourself to a life of riding the rails. How’s that?”
She clenched her jaw and rocked back and forth, but couldn’t find a loophole. Slapping the door, she slipped off to get her books. With that problem solved, Nick returned to the matter of dinner. Meatloaf and a few carrots wouldn’t exactly…
Holy shit!The knife moved so fast all he could see was a silver blur, then a pile of julienne carrots. She wiped the blade off and placed it on the cutting board. “Any chance you have some bell peppers, brussels sprouts, or cucumbers?”
“Uh…” Nick’s mouth ran dry, and he blindly swatted for the fridge. “Let me look.”
As he dug through the crisper drawer that had more pizza rolls than veggies, Emma said, “I was thinking of whipping up a simple balsamic slaw salad. Nothing too elaborate, but the brightness might work well off the meat.”
“That sounds way better than anything I’d had planned.” Boiled carrots and peas were good enough after a long day. He pushed aside a carton of strawberry yogurt and spotted a single produce bag. “I think all we have is this broccoli stem.”
She took it with a smile and broke a tiny tree off the bigger branch. To his relief, it made a snap instead of a soggy plorp. “This can work.”
“All right, all right, I’m here, doing stupid math. Is that satisfactory for you?”
“Depends on what you got on the last test,” Nick said, slipping closer to stare over Skylar’s scattered sheets and textbook. He only spotted a handful of numbers and words and hated to admit it was all Greek to him.
But as the girl caught his eye, he came back with a, “Hm?”
“A seventy-eight, which isn’t that bad. One of the kids got a ten.”
“Skylar.”
“I don’t get the point of this. Where in the real world will I have someone ask me to prove this is a circle? Look, it’s round. It’s a circle. Stop giving it an existential crisis, geometry!” She slammed her book down in frustration.
“You need to get good grades so you can—”
“Get into a good college,” she said in her ‘stupid adults are talking’ voice. Suddenly, Skylar turned on a dime and asked in a sweet voice, “Did you get ‘good grades’ uncle Nick?”
He knew he shouldn’t lie to her beyond the little ones, but if he told her he scraped by with a C-minus average, it’d blow his platform. Nick stepped back and looked to his only salvation. “Emma?”
“Hm?”
