Page 57 of A Baby for the Firefighter
By the timeFriday night rolled around, I had learned to make a simple pork roast without setting the kitchen on fire. It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t going to give Dean food poisoning, and at this point, that was the best I could hope for. I had severely overestimated my omega abilities when I offered to cook for him.
I’d arranged for my mother to stay at the only bed & breakfast in town, which was going to raise suspicions of course, but I didn’t care. I’d been through far worse gossip than that I might be sleeping with the hottest alpha in town. What I did care about was that I couldn’t get my mother to leave before my brother showed up. She dilly-dallied the whole time, and I suspected she did it on purpose. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t have told her that Eli was coming over, but there was nothing I could do about that now, short of throwing my mom out of the house.
In all my life, I’d never seen my mother run, but when Eli knocked on the door, she very nearly did.
“Elias!” she said when she was face to face with him. “It’s so good to see you!”
My brother stood in front of her and obviously had no idea what to say. He’d said he knew how to handle her, but maybe not. “Hi, Mom,” he got out in the end, before his eyes searched for me and he met my gaze with an awkward smile.
“Mom was just about to leave for the bed & breakfast,” I said, trying to help him out.
“Oh, I was,” she said, never looking away from Eli. “But I have a few minutes if you’d like to chat.”
Eli glanced at me again, biting his lip.
I shrugged.Sorry, you’re on your own, bro. Your decision to make.
“I guess a few minutes won’t hurt,” he said eventually.
Yes!A step forward. I tried to keep from smiling. “I have a few preparations to make in the kitchen,” I excused myself, because I figured it was best to give the two of them some privacy, no matter how badly I wanted to listen in on their conversation.
In reality, I was done with everything I had to do in the kitchen, so I just sat with a coffee and waited. And maybe I spiked my coffee with a little extra because my nerves could really use it that day.
My mom and my brother had gone to the living room, so I couldn’t really hear them aside from muffled voices. At least they weren’t raised. If they could talk for five minutes without fighting, that would be awesome, especially since I got the feeling that Eli was making an effort on my behalf, and I didn’t want to drag him into anything too uncomfortable.
But this drama couldn’t continue forever. What if the next time tragedy struck someone actually died?
I didn’t even want to think about that, so I just sipped my coffee and waited.
It couldn’t have taken longer than ten minutes before I heard the front door open and a few seconds later, my brother stepped into the kitchen.
“You got any more of that coffee?” he asked.
“Sure.” I got up to pour him some. “You didn’t fight, did you?” I asked because I couldn’t contain the questions any longer. I’d given him a few minutes of privacy; that was all he could ask.
“No.” He shook his head. “No fighting. She really just wanted to chat.” Accepting a mug of coffee from me, he sat at the counter. “It seems she genuinely wants to make up.”
“That’s good, though, right?”
“I guess. Maybe. I got the feeling she wants to see the kids.” He stirred some sugar into his coffee. Not as much as I took with mine, but still a good amount.
“Does that surprise you?”
“Not really. Just don’t know how to feel about it.” He raised the mug to his lips. “Guess I’ll have to figure it out.”
“Guess so, yeah.”
He gave me a small smile. “Let’s just move on to the fun part of the evening, okay? Let’s get you ready for your date.”
“Okay,” I said, pretending like that thought didn’t freak me out a little.
* * *
Dean rangmy door bell at 7pm sharp carrying a bottle of wine, and I opened the door in an old-fashioned pink apron, immediately getting a laugh out of him. So far so good.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing at it after giving me a quick kiss.
“You don’t like it?” I feigned disappointment. “I thought I’d dress like a good house-husband for you.”
