Page 15 of Sweetheart and the Grouch
“You just do that online?”
She nods. “And it helps because I can work my own hours. Means I’m available to help Ellie with her schooling.”
“You enrolling her here?”
“Eventually. There’s some stuff I have to figure out first.”
“Stuff you’ll likely tell me later?” She places her hand over mine and nods. “I’ll help however I can.”
“Thanks.” She pulls her hand back and lies back on the rug we’ve put over the lawn, squinting up at the sky. “You know, it’s strange.”
“What is?” I ask, joining her with my gaze up at the sky.
“This. You. Me. Here. I’ve never felt comfortable alone with a man before. But with you…” She bites her smile and shakes her head before she sits up again. “It’s silly.”
“No. Tell me,” I say, placing the flat of my hand against her back. “I want to know.”
She turns and looks down at me, vulnerability in her eyes. “It feels like we belong.”
I move my thumb back and forth against her shirt as I give her a slight nod. “I know what you mean. Logically, this is all kinds of crazy. But if I look past all the noise, there’s only one thing I know to be true.”
“And what’s that?”
“It’s you.”
AINSLEY
“Are you gonna be here in the morning when I wake up?” Elena asks Ajax. She’s freshly showered and comfy in her favorite PJs. Her teeth are brushed and it’s time for her to spend her first night in a room all on her own. It’s thirty minutes before her usual bedtime, but she’s so excited about it, she’s ready early.
“Ah,” Ajax falters, his thumb running along the handle of his coffee mug where he sits nursing it at the kitchen table. “That’s not really my call to make. But if I’m not, I’ll be along soon after with a box of fresh muffins for you. Will that work?”
Her eyes light up. “The chocolate ones?”
“Whoa. Whoa. We don’t eat chocolate for breakfast, missy,” I interject, earning myself a laugh from Ajax and Ellie.
“Healthy chocolate, Ainsley,” Ellie says, like I should have known it all along.
“That exists?” I look to Ajax for confirmation and he nods.
“Full of vegetables,” he says. “You’d never know it though.”
“OK,” I say, feeling a little unsure about this sorcery. “I’ll put my trust in you there.”
“He’s a magician,” Ellie says as I steer her toward her room and she pulls out her book of bedtime stories. She can read it all by herself these days, but this quiet time before bed is something we’ve always done. I think I’ll be sad when she finally outgrows fairytales.
We read the story about the Princess and the Pea, and Ellie wonders how a tiny pea can cause such a bruise under all those mattresses. Then she sighs and dreams aloud about finding out she’s really a princess, and I give her a kiss on the forehead and tell her she’ll always be my princess.
“You’re Ajax’s,” she says before I reach the door.
“Maybe.” I turn to face her as I lift my hand to the light switch. “We’ll need a little time before we know that.”
“But in all my stories, they know right away.”
“Real life is a little different to that, honey,” I say, resting my face against the doorframe as I smile at her innocence. “But you wanna know a secret?”
“Yeah.”
“I hope he is my prince.”
