Page 36 of Maybe We Can Fake It

“We’re making breakfast.”

“You don’t know how to cook.”

She rolls her eyes in a spectacularly dramatic fashion. “Well, okay, I’m just stirring the pancake batter like Travis told me to.”

“Which is more than I’d trust you to do,” Travis says to me, turning around. And I feel suddenly unsteady on my feet, because he’s smiling.Smiling.

It’s not that he never smiles. It’s just... he doesn’t smilehere, in my kitchen first thing in the morning, standing beside my daughter while listening to pop music.

“I think I need a fainting couch,” I unfortunately utter out loud.

“A what?” May asks.

Ugh, now I feel old.“Never mind. Is there coffee for me?”

That gets me another teenage girl eyeroll and a response of, “Duh, I didn’t drink the whole pot.”

“You act like that’s an impossibility.”

May might not be quite as addicted to caffeine as I am—thankfully—but she’s working on it.

I squeeze past Travis to get to the coffee maker and pour myself a cup, then step back and eye the two of them again. “So is anyone going to tell me what’s going on here?”

“Idid,” May insists.

“She really did,” Travis adds.

Great, now they’re ganging up on me.

Narrowing my eyes at him, I say, “You, hush.” Then I shake my head. “Actually, no. Talk. Because there’s no way I had all this stuff in my fridge.”

“By ‘stuff’ do you mean the ingredients to make a proper meal?” he asks.

“Yes, exactly. I mean, whatisthis?” I go to pick up a handful of spinach leaves he’s set to the side, but he swats my hand away. “I’ve never seen it before. Are you sure it’s edible?”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

I fight to keep a straight face.

He holds my eye contact for a few moments, then goes back to what he was doing before I interrupted. “I had to wake up super early to open the diner, so I grabbed all this from there because I figured, correctly, that you’d have nothing. I snuck back in before anyone else was awake.”

Damn. Now I feel bad that he had to go to the diner but still came back here. He must be exhausted. Though I suppose he’s used to the early hours. You wouldn’t find me dead getting up that early for work. Or I guess you would, because if I had to do that, it would kill me.

After taking a much-needed gulp of coffee, I tell him, “You didn’t have to cook for us.”

“I think I’ve heard it’s what boyfriends do,” he says dryly. Then his face cracks into a smile. “Elise and Grant are having their tea and coffee out on the porch, but we can all eat together before I need to get back to work. You took today off, right?”

“Mmhmm,” I confirm, leaning around him to ogle the food. “If you’re making pancakes, what’s with the veggies?”

Again, he swats my hand away as I go to snag a small piece of red pepper. That’s what I get for wanting a vegetable. “I’m making omelets too. I knew you and May would be happy with pancakes, but I figured her grandparents might appreciate something healthier.”

“You figured right.”

“I also realized I didn’t have a change of clothes,” he says, “so I changed at home, and this way it’ll look like I keep clothes here.”

“Can I stop stirring now?” May whines. “I think I’m getting carpal tunnel.”

Travis laughs. “You’re as bad as your dad.”

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