“Great. I’ll bring dinner.”
“Oh, that’s not nec?—”
“See you at five.” He hung up before she could protest further, and she simultaneously smiled and rolled her eyes. Her phone beeped and she looked down, seeing a text from him. She clicked into it:Stop rolling your eyes. Chuckling, she slipped the phone into her pocket and moved back to the pottery wheel.
He pulled the sleek, black Porsche into her drive just after five o’clock. She watched from the loungeroom window as he got out carrying an overnight bag and two shopping bags.
The late afternoon sun added a bronzed sheen to his dark hair as he walked the few steps to her front verandah and up the stairs. “William!” Billy jumped down from his seat at the table and ran to greet him. Her heart lurched as he dropped his overnight bag and swept Billy up with one arm.
“Hey, big fella!”
“I’m playing with my frogs!”
“That’s great! I want you to do something for me, though. Take all the frogs out of the pond and put them in your room.”
Billy frowned, ready to object.
“Trust me.”
“Okay,” Billy said uncertainly, wriggling to get down.
Once he’d scooped the frogs into his shirt and ran off to his room, Juniper moved forward, relishing the light in William’s eyes as they rested on her face. “Hi,” she said softly, standing on tiptoe to brush her lips lightly across his. He snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her against him, turning what she’d planned to be a brief welcoming kiss into a long, lingering one that left her lips tingling when he lifted his head.
“Hi.”
“I’ve put my frogs away!”
“Excellent. Let me put these bags down and I’ll show you what I got for you.” As he moved to the kitchen, he picked up the pond he’d carved for Billy and took it with him. Quickly stowing oneshopping bag in the fridge, he put the other on the bench next to the pond. Intrigued, Juniper came over, lifting Billy onto one of the stools under the bench and sitting at the other one. “Now, this is a very important job. Can I trust you with it?”
Billy nodded solemnly as William removed a bag of chocolate freddo frogs from the shopping bag. “You need to open these and put them in the pond. WITHOUT eating them. Or licking them.”
“Okay.” Taking his job very seriously, Billy started unwrapping the first frog. Seeing that opening all twelve would be a big job for him, Juniper helped, keeping an eye on William as she did so. He was taking packs of ready-made blue jelly from the bag, placing them on the counter, and she realized straight away what he had planned. She grinned at him. It was super cute, and Billy would love it.
“Okay, good job. Now we have to get some glad wrap.” He looked at Juniper enquiringly.
“Third drawer.”
Retrieving the glad wrap, he carefully laid it inside the pond. “Now, open up these jellies and pour them in.”
Once that was done, Billy watched as William added the first chocolate frog to the pond and his eyes went round with wonder and delight. “Chocolate frogs in my pond!” He breathed.
“That’s it. Now you do the rest while I get dinner on.”
Juniper got the air fryer from the cupboard and placed it on the bench, curious to see what William had planned and not setting her hopes very high. He took a bag of dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets out of the bag, reading the cooking instructions carefully.
“Seriously?” she said under her breath.
“I never joke about nuggets.”
“You have the eating habits of a toddler.”
“Are we having nuggets? I LOVE nuggets.”
Juniper gestured to Billy as if to say, See?
William just grinned at her as he put the nuggets in the fryer and turned it on. “Not just nuggets, mate. Dino nugget wraps.”
Juniper burst out laughing. He was just too much.
