Page 6 of Endless
“But I wifed up the best one.” I squeezed her shoulders and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Sit down, see what Angie sent the kids. I’ll bring you breakfast.” I followed her out to the living room just to snap a towel at Gunner’s head. “Get in here and help.”
“Jesus, fine. Be right back, little dude.” He and Reaper were going through smaller boxes of Legos with our son, Daren.
“Can you handle pancakes?” I shoved the bowl of batter at Gunner. “Don’t burn them.”
“Fuck yeah, pancakes!” He got to stirring excitedly.
“Little ones for the kids. No bigger than a softball.”
“I know dude, I got it.” He poured the batter with surprising care, making explosion noises that got Daren all excited from the living room.
Dad-life had infected Gunner with a childlike excitement about all the little things. He was the fun dad, for sure. Me? I considered myself the teacher. I took every opportunity I could to show the kids how something worked, whether it was cooking or the bubbles in their bath. Shadow was the neurotic, overprotective one, although he was getting better at dialing it back. Reaper, oddly enough, turned out to be the most well-balanced of us.
While Gunner poured, flipped, and stacked pancakes, I worked on the eggs and bacon. The aroma started filling up the house and Gun’s curious little miniature wandered in to investigate.
“Listo para comer, mijita?”I asked Rori if she was ready to eat as she wandered to my side of the counter. “Not too close, baby. It’s hot.”
“Papi, can I have an egg?” She stood on tiptoes, grabbing drawer handles like she was ready to climb up and swipe the whole pan of scrambled eggs for herself.
I touched her chin to bring her attention to me. “En español, mijita.” She knew the words, she just needed to practice saying them. There was always a teachable moment.
Rori frowned, the frustration settling into her tightly-knitted eyebrows. “I don’t know how.” Her voice was climbing into that whine, the one that preceded all her worst tantrums.
This was the other side to always wanting to teach them something, dealing with the impatience and struggles when they didn’t succeed right away. But not everything would come easily to them, and they had to learn that too.
Thankfully, it was Reaper to the rescue.
“Yes, you do.” He crouched low next to her, hugging one arm around her waist. “I’ll help you. We’ll say it together, okay?” Rori’s attention was successfully diverted to him, a welcome distraction from her tantrum. She watched his mouth intently, mimicking him as he slowly formed the words.
“Un…”
“Un…”
“Hue…”
“H-h-hue…”
“Hue-vito. You got it, sugar cube.”
“Un hue-vito.”Rori turned back to me.“Por favor.”
Only a completely heartless bastard would not have melted at the look my daughter gave me right then. All the times I got shot up and nearly died, when I thought I lost Mari and everyone else—it was worth it for that look alone.
“Very good,mijita.” I composed myself fast enough to scoop her up, tucking her against my side as I planted a big kiss on her cheek. “You’re so smart, and I’m proud of you.” I kissed her other cheek. “I love you.”
I made a mental note to let her know how proud I was as often as possible. While Four Corners was relatively safe, it could be generations before the outside world was as safe for girls as it once was. Wherever my daughter ended up in her adult life, I wanted her to feel confident in how intelligent she was. I never wanted her to doubt for a second that she was loved.
"Huevito!"Rori repeated insistently.
"Yeah, yeah. I got your eggs right here, princess." I scooped up a spoonful of scrambled egg that had already cooled next to the stove and held it up to her lips. "Test it for me. Is it ready?"
She took the biggest bite possible off the end of the wooden spoon and proceeded to spill small crumbles of egg onto the floor. Good thing Hades was there to clean it all up.
"How is it? Good?" At her enthusiastic nod, I put her spoon aside and handed her a clean one. "Help me stir this next batch. It's almost ready. Hey!" My head whipped around at the sight of Reaper in my periphery. "Fuck off, bacon thief!"
"What?" Reaper unashamedly fed the strip of meat to Hades, who inhaled it. "He can't have eggs without bacon."
"Fuck off!" Rori parroted me, waving the stirring spoon at Reaper.
