Page 16 of Holding You
“Cabinet, cabinet, cabinet.” He follows her.
I rise and pull off my glasses, catching the exact moment Susie clumsily attempts to put what appears to be a Tupperware of something into said cabinet.
I let out a sigh.
“Did Ruby bake something again?”
Two sets of innocent eyes, one bright green and the other ocean blue, turn to me.
“Blueberry lemon cookies,” Susie whispers as her lips stretch into a smile.
I blow out my breath.
Damn. Those sound delicious.
I move toward the kids, ready to ask them my routine list of questions, because this is not the first time something like this has happened. In fact, for the last few months, it’s been a weekly event on Saturday mornings. I was sure they would tire of it and it would stop, but I clearly was mistaken.
My lips part, ready to do my thing, when Susie cracks open the lid and holds the container to my face.
I’m distracted by the sweet smell of sugar and blueberries. I take a deep breath.
“You know you want to try it,” Max says. The last word ends with a little higher pitch than the rest.
I do. He’s not wrong, but that’s not the point here. The point is, these two steal Ruby’s desserts on the weekly and hide them here, which then starts a fight, if we want to call it that, between her and me.
It’s more like she’s annoyed, and I enjoy watching her get worked up, so I play into it.
The woman is determined to hate me no matter what I choose to do, so I may as well get some joy out of it.
To be fair to the kids, it’s really not that hard to upset Ruby when it comes to anything related to me. Susie could be caught tie-dyeing on Ruby’s white table, staining the wood surface a shit brown, and Ruby would tell her it’s okay, that accidents happen and she can fix it, but the moment I step into the house, she’d tell me I can properly wait outside.
All because once upon a time, I pissed her off and she never let it go.
Her brothers ask me on the regular what I did to their little sister and I tell themif only I knew myself.
Why Ruby Asher can’t stand me remains a mystery.
You’d think that because of that, I wouldn’t be attracted to her.
But unfortunately for me, I am.
I’m attracted to a lot of things about her.
It’s fucking annoying.
“Come on, Dec. Try it,” Max insists.
I hold my hands up and step back, as if that’s going to help.
“No, no. Did you two ask before you took these?”
Susie rolls her eyes and crosses her arms.
“Yes, Dad, we asked if we could have them. We asked how many we could have. We asked if we could borrow the container, and we asked if … I could share with you.” Susie smirks. “Her answer took a little longer on that one, but she did say that I could.”
“Did she?” I raise one brow at them as Max hands me a cookie.
“She sure did.” Max grins.
