“After breakfast,” Willow says.
Heat hits my cheekbones. “I’m good.” I try to round her, but she blocks my exit and sets her hand on my chestagain, making it feel warm and tingly.
“No one goes out until they’ve had a hot breakfast in them. It’ll just be a minute.” She pushes me firmly back to a stool next to Beck. “Sit.” She opens the fridge, pulls out milk, bangs cupboards open and closed, then sets a saucepan on the stove. “Anyone have any allergies?”
Beck raises his hand. “I’m allergic to orders,” he says, standing.
“Beck, sit your ass down,” I growl. “It’s Willow’s first morning here, give her a break.”
“A break from what?” Willow asks, stirring oatmeal on the stove. Somehow she managed to find cinnamon and walnuts, which she sets on the table. “Where d’you keep your maple syrup?”
Lane pulls it out from the cupboard.
Willow frowns. “Maple syrup goes in the fridge,” she says, and I’m bracing for Beck to lose it.
“That doesn’t have time to go bad here. Be gone in two days,” he says of the quarter gallon bottle.
Willow frowns. “Really? What d’you do with it?”
“Glaze vegetables.”
“Marinate ribs.”
“Marinate salmon.”
Willow’s eyes dance between Beck and Lane while they continue to show off.
“Rice pudding.”
“Brownies.”
“Skin mask.”
“Pre-workout energy drink.”
“Yogurt.”
Now they’re pushing it. “Really, when was the last time you made yogurt?” I ask.
“You make your own yogurt?” Willow marvels.
Lane shrugs. “Used to,” she says while Beck continues, “Lemonade. Ice cream. Maple taffy.”
“What happened to breakfast?” Willow asks, hands on her hips as if she’s about to scold them.
I suppress a chuckle, but at the same time… “You seem disappointed,” I say, realizing it’s me who’s disappointed. I guess I wanted to impress Willow.
“Not at all. I’m gonna slide right into my role of breakfast maker. And cleaner,” she adds, looking around.
But we won’t give her time to do that. If there’s one thing growing up without parents really present for the last ten years taught us, it’s to not be pigs.
“Here,” she says, setting piping hot bowls of oatmeal in front of each of us and sliding next to me. “You like it?” she whispers just for me, while Beck and Lane bicker loudly about maple syrup grade. I’m still not quite over the fact that they had virtually nothing to say about our getting married. I don’t know what reaction I was expecting but… something.
Instead, it looks like Willow is… sliding right in, like she said.
And I’m already getting uncomfortably attached to my wife. First it was all this sexiness driving me crazy, but I could rationalize that. Attribute it to hormones and proximity.
But now? She’s taking care of me—of us—and I don’t know that I can rationalize exactly what that does to me.
