Page 73 of Digging Up Love
Alisha:
Well, I have always wanted a curated tour of the dinosaur wing at the Field Museum.
Quentin:
Careful, you might regret it. I’ve been known to go full Dr.Grant in the presence of fossils.
Alisha:
Is that a promise?
Quentin:
Excuse me, ma’am, but I don’t appreciate being objectified.
Alisha:
Maybe you should try not being so sexy, then.
Quentin’s eyebrows shot up right along with his pulse. The phone slipped out of his hand and bonked Lily’s head. “Oh, sorry, kid!” He pulled her close, kissing the top of her head.
“Ow! Owie!” Her wails were loud enough to wake the upstairs neighbors, if not the dead themselves. Quentin scooped her up and grabbed an ice pack out of the freezer.
“Sorry, sweetie.” He tried to put the ice on her head, but she evaded him like Han Solo piloting theMillennium Falcon, so he tossed it on the counter.
Arms wrapped around his neck, Lily blinked up at him with puppy dog eyes. “Daddy always gives me an ice pop when I get an owie.”
“Oh, he does, does he?” Quentin was skeptical; then again, his brother was a pushover. He opened the freezer and shoved cartons aside until he found a box of freezer pops. He set Lily on the counter so he could unwrap one and then handed it to her.
“What about my treat?” Lauryn had materialized at his side.
“Yeesh!” Startled, Quentin dutifully tore open another. “What the heck.” He grabbed a third for himself and leaned against the counter.The kitchen subsided into blissful silence, apart from the ticking of the wall clock.
Almost finished with his ice pop, Quentin looked down at Lauryn and gasped. Not the clock ticking, after all. His niece’s freezer pop was melting faster than polar sea ice. A steady stream of purple drips slid off her elbow to splat onto the white tile floor.
She raised her arm to lick the trail of juice, and gravity sent the entire freezer pop sliding off the stick like a calving iceberg. It hit the floor, and purple droplets splattered in all directions. Lauryn tilted her head back and started to cry. A second plop signaled the demise of Lily’s ice pop, and her howls were a good fifty decibels higher. He resisted the urge to duck and run for cover. Instead, he shoved the rest of his freezer pop into his mouth and bit down on the stick.
Mistake, mistake.Instant brain freeze.
Breathing through his nose, stick poking out of his mouth, Quentin stooped down and picked up both girls, one on either arm, and hustled into the bathroom. He murmured soothing nonsense to calm their tears while he cleaned their faces and hands with some baby wipes he found on the counter. Good enough.
By the time he’d found their pajamas, the twins’ sobs had dwindled to sniffles, and Lauryn insisted on a giant stack of books for bedtime stories.
A thousand lifetimes later, the girls were tucked in bed. Quentin wiped up the evidence of the ice-pop meltdown, then tiptoed out to the living room and collapsed onto the couch. TheFrozentitle track played on repeat, but the remote sat on the TV stand, and he was too exhausted to bother getting up again.
Just as his eyes were closing, his phone pinged from under his butt, in the depths of the cushions.
Shoot ... Alisha—he’d never answered!
Phone overhead, Quentin swiped away a text from his brother saying he and Vanessa would be home in an hour and opened Alisha’s thread.
Quentin:
Hey sorry, I got caught up with my nieces. How about tomorrow afternoon?
Alisha:
Simone and I are going to brunch, but I’m free later. Wanna meet at the museum at 2?
