Page 22 of Hello Forever
So I did the next best thing—I baked a batch of muffins. I’d used my favorite recipe, which was pear and ginger. I ate three of them, gobbling them down with a cup ofcoffee.
I was going to gain twenty-five pounds if I keptthisup.
Leaving myself three more muffins for tomorrow, I put the other half-dozen into a plastic tub and carried them down the stairs to Caleb and Josh’s back door. When I knocked, the first thing I heard was a hair-raising shriek. Confused, I couldn’t decide whether to knock again or walk away. The door jerked open to reveal Josh standing there with two very small children—one on each hip. “Hey!” he said. Then he smiled. “Are thosemuffins?”
“I didn’t know you had babies.” I steppedinside.
“What babies?” he asked with a wink. “Oh, you meanthese?” He hitched them both up a little higher as I shutthedoor.
“NOT a baby,” protested one of the little people inhisarms.
“That’s right,” Josh agreed, kneeling down to set her on her feet. “You’re a big girl. So stop taking toys away from your babybrother.”
She ran out of the room without a backward glance, and then a third small person toddled into the room, grabbing Josh aroundtheknee.
“Hello, miss,” Josh said. “Say hi to our newneighbor,Axel.”
The little girl squinted up at me. Then she buried her face inJosh’sleg.
He laughed. “This is Willy. She’s my cousin Miriam’s daughter, and the other two are my cousin Maggie’s kids. We spend a lot of time together. Miriam and Maggie are out shopping togetherrightnow.”
“Wow,” I said. “Do you do this everySaturday?”
“Pretty much. It gives their mothers abreak.”
“Have a muffin,” I said, putting them down on the counter. “I realized I was going to chow the whole dozen unless I gave some away. They’re pear andginger.”
Josh’s eyes widened. “You baked? In that littlekitchen?”
“I’ve cooked in worse kitchens thanthatone.”
“Wow. Neither Caleb or I are true cooks. I mean…we get by. But it’s a lot of burgers on the grill and macaroni and cheese from a box.” Josh reached down with his free hand, broke off a piece of a muffin, and shoved it in his mouth. Then his eyes rolled back in his head. “Oh jeez. Yum.” He broke off another smaller piece and offered it to the baby under his arm. The baby moved his little face to the side, refusing it. “More for me,” Josh said, popping it into hismouth.
I eyed the whole crazy scene with a smile on my face. There were toys on the floor, and the sound of cartoons coming from the living room television. But Josh looked unruffled. He pointed at the coffee pot on the counter. “Want a cup? You’ll have to pour for yourself.” His hands were busy with the baby-holding and the muffin-eating.
“Sure. Thanks.” I really didn’t need more caffeine, but I wanted to linger a little longer, and Josh wasn’t hurrying me out the door. I took a mug from the cupboard he indicated and poured my cup. There was a carton of milk on the counter and I helped myself to asplash.
He plunked himself down in a kitchen chair. “It’s crazy here today. You’ll probably think twice about knockingagain.”
“No way. My apartment has that new-guysilence.”
Josh nodded slowly. “You made one friend, though,right?”
My stomach tightened. “Youmean…”
“Professor Williams.” His lips quirked into a littlesmile.
Shit. “It’s not like that,” I said withasigh.
“No?” He looked surprised. “I just assumed that when a guy shows up at dinnertime with a bottle of wine underhisarm…”
“It’s not like that,” I repeated. If Cax needed to play the straight man in this town, I wasn’t going to wreck itforhim.
“Too bad,” Josh said. “I would have put money on him being gay. He is,right?”
Inwardly I cringed for poor Cax, who would not want to hear that one of his students had assumed he was gay. “Well.” I swallowed. “He’s better off if we don’t try to speculate. There are people in his life who might not be okaywithit.”
“Oh.” Josh’s face fell. “I know exactly how that works. Saynomore.”
