Page 9 of Nothing to This
He went over to dip his hands in each of the pockets.She carried juice in a pitcher to the table.Both kids drank from their cups and were disappointed to taste milk.
“I want juice,” Kye said.
“The juice is for Daddy,” she said and put a hand on the back of the same chair JD had sat in last night.“Join us for breakfast, Daddy.”
Jacket in hand, he returned to them.“My phone isn’t here.”
“That’s what happens in a house with four-year-olds,” she said.“Things go walkabout.”
Narrowing his eyes, he wasn’t buying the innocent explanation.“Except the kids were with me.”
She bent over the table to pick up his plate, filling it with bacon and pancakes.“Your children eat breakfast like it’s the only meal they get in a day.If you don’t eat fast, you don’t eat.”
“Daddy, do you like bacon?”Sky asked.
After putting JD’s plate down at his place, she went around to help Sky cut her pancakes with the little one’s plastic flatware.
“I hope so,” Rylee said.“Or Kye will have a sore tummy from all the leftovers he’ll have to eat.”She glanced up at JD.“Kye’s addicted to bacon.That’s why we limit his exposure.”
“I get bacon ‘cause Daddy’s here,” Kye said, picking up a piece of bacon with his fingers.
“Yes, you do,” she said and went around her daughter to get to her son.“Use your knife and fork, baby.”
Whether he’d heard or was too preoccupied, JD didn’t respond to the table conversation.
Something else bothered him.“My phone, Ry?”
Hmm, being out of contact with the world brought out his prickly side.Interesting to know.
“No alarm went off,” she said, continuing her mommy duties.She wasn’t going to drop everything for him when the kids needed help.“If I’d heard it make a noise, I would have woken you.”
“The hotel calls my room to wake me up, that’s my alarm.I should’ve been up hours ago.”
After cutting up Kye’s food and putting his fork in his hand, she licked her fingers.
JD sat at the head of the table.
“Well, this isn’t a hotel, JD.”
“Grama wakes Daddy ups,” Sky said.“Like momma wakeses me.”
JD picked up Sky’s little hand and bowed to kiss it.“Daddy’s not staying with Grama.”
That piqued her curiosity… and her concern.
“Why not?”she asked, pouring juice for JD.“She didn’t say anything about a falling out.”
Examining the spread for the first time, JD got interested.“It’s nothing that dramatic.I just haven’t gotten around to looking at apartments yet and she only has two bedrooms.Usually, I sleep in the den when I’m there with the kids.I keep saying I’ll buy her a new place, but she doesn’t like to move.”
“I know that, and she likes her neighbors too.Your mom has a community around her that she loves,” she said, trying to figure out the situation.Why would he want to look at apartments if he wasn’t buying one for his mom?“Why would…?Wait, does that mean you’re staying?”
Sky cheered.“Yay!Daddy, live with us!”
“Daddy, stay here!”Kye exclaimed, sitting up fast.
“Oh no, honey,” she said.“I meant in the city, not in our apartment.”Wouldn’t that be a hilarious recipe for disaster?“Daddy doesn’t want to stay here.”
Except… interest lit his expression.“It’s not a bad idea.”
