Page 51 of Seasoned
“If you’re going to pretend you didn’t notice, then you shouldn’t mention it. See how that works?”
He laughed again, harder this time, and that brought a smile to her face but a pinch of pain in her chest.
“Fair enough. I ordered the Mongolian beef three times this week.”
Adelaide shook her head. “They might as well set up a standing order for you every day.”
She reached into the cabinet and pulled down dishes. When she turned around, Hector’s gaze quickly flicked up to meet hers, and her breath caught. Had she caught him looking at her ass? She couldn’t be sure, but she was almost certain that’s what he’d been doing.
“Need some help?” he asked.
“Um, no, I have it.”
“How about we do this. Dinner first, then we get down to business?”
“Sounds good to me.”
They ate in the dining room. Initially, conversation was a bit awkward, but then they both gradually relaxed.
Hector told her his aunt, the one he’d lived with when he moved to the United States as a teenager, was going back to Michoacán. Adelaide made a mental note to call her. They hadn’t talked in a while, but she wanted to visit and wish her well before she left. Now that her kids and grandkids were scattered around the country, Adelaide understood why she wanted to return home.
She told Hector the latest news in her family—weddings, deaths, and caught him up on news about mutual friends. She had always been better at keeping up with the happenings among their friends, reminding him about birthdays and other special events.
The conversation was friendly and they laughed a few times from shared memories. It was nice having someone to talk to in the house.
After the meal, they took the dishes to the kitchen and then settled in the living room where Hector placed his laptop on the coffee table and opened an Excel file. “I worked on a budget and a checklist for Danny and Jamie. It’s just the beginning, but I wanted to get them thinking about what their responsibilities would be regarding this baby.”
Seated on the other end of the sofa, Adelaide angled her body toward the screen. “What do you have?”
Hector moved closer and Adelaide tensed. She caught the scent of him. A musky odor. Not a bad smell, but one that came from working all day. Unique to Hector. No one else smelled like him, and she became a little breathless at the memory of how his scent would be painted into her skin after they made love.
He scrolled through the spreadsheet and Adelaide stared at it with raised eyebrows. He’d listed everything that could possibly be listed, from before birth to when their grandchild started kindergarten. The costs included food, a car seat, strollers, diapers, clothing, health insurance, and even the hospital stay when Jamie delivered.
“Jamie needs prenatal and postnatal care,” Hector said, pointing to cells highlighted in yellow. “They’ll also need to start a college fund and Danny needs life insurance, because if anything happens to him—”
Adelaide placed a hand on his forearm and they both froze. Heat filled her palm and his muscles tightened. They stared at each other, and she forgot why she’d touched him in the first place. When her memory came back, she calmly eased away her hand.
Clearing her throat, she said, “If you’re trying to scare them, you’ve done a great job.”
“Not scare them. I want them to understand the gravity of becoming parents.”
“I’m sure they understand.”
“This will bring it home. They need to take this pregnancy seriously.”
Adelaide opened her mouth and then closed it again, wondering about the best way to tactfully let him down easy. He’d done a lot of work. “I don’t think we should overwhelm them like this,” she said gently.
Silence filled the air between them.
Hector closed the laptop and rested his elbows on his knees. “This isn’t what I wanted for him. He was supposed to finish college and get a job or start his own business. Eventually he’d get married and have a couple of kids.”
“I know. But the current situation is not the end of the world. We’re both here and able to help him and Jamie, which is better than the situation you and I were in. I believe they’ll take this seriously. This is all good information, but the baby isn’t here yet, and it’s…a lot.”
“Too much?”
“Too much,” Adelaide confirmed with a nod.
“Yeah, maybe I went too far with the college fund information.”
