Actually, let’s go with a triple-decker shit-shit-shit and a side of panic.
Leo and I must’ve dozed off again after…well,after. I swore I’d slip out before she woke up and get my act together so I wouldn’t be caught red-handed in her dad’s bed, looking exactly like the woman who just spent the night doing things that would make my high-school self blush.
Thank the modesty gods I had the foresight to throw on his Columbia crewneck before we crashed. It’s gray, worn thin at the collar, and hangs on me like a tent, but it’s a hell of a lot better than Emma walking in on me wearing…well, absolutely nothing.
“Did you and Daddy have a sleepover?” Emma asks, her head tilting with the precision of a confused puppy.
I blink at her, my brain still foggy from too little sleep and too much…everything. “Um, yeah. Yeah, we did. A very sleepy…sleepover.”
She nods, seemingly satisfied by this logic. Kids are terrifyingly easy to fool until they’re suddenly not.
I sneak a glance at Leo. He is blissfully dead to the world. One arm is flung over his head, his jaw is relaxed, and he’s letting out a soft, rhythmic snore that should be annoying but is somehow…devastatingly endearing. The poor guy’s probably running on fumes. He never gets to sleep in, never gets a real break. Looking at him like this, all relaxed and unguarded in the morning light filtering through the blinds, something tugs in my chest. Affection? Protectiveness? Whatever it is, it’s warm and a little scary.
I slide out of bed carefully and steer Emma toward the door with a light hand on her shoulder. “How about some pancakes to kick off the day, kid?”
Her face lights up like I just promised Disney World. “Chocolate chip ones?”
“Is there any other kind?”
Emma climbs onto a barstool at the kitchen counter, her legs swinging like pendulums as I start pulling out the staples—flour, eggs, the oversized yellow tin of baking powder. I’ve become an accidental pancake pro over the last few weeks. Leo still brings up “The Great Smoke Alarm Incident of ’94” at least once a day. I’d burned the first batch I’d ever made so badly we had to prop the front door open with a dictionary and pray the neighbors didn’t call the FDNY.
“Can we put extra chocolate chips in?” Emma asks, her eyes fixed on the bag of Nestlé Toll House morsels.
“We can put in a reasonable amount,” I say, trying to sound like the responsible adult I am definitely pretending to be.
“What’s reasonable?”
“It’s a very precise scientific measurement, young lady,” I say, pointing a wooden spoon at her. “It’s three more than your dad would allow, and five less than what you’d probably ask for.”
She giggles, a high, bubbly sound that’s sunshine personified. It’s the kind of laugh that reminds me why I keep showing up, even when this whole situation feels like walking a tightrope without a net.
After we finish eating, the kitchen looks like a chocolate-chip-infused battlefield. I transition into a state of manic domesticity, mostly to avoid the crushing weight of the fact that I am currently a “Woman Who Stayed Over.”
“Okay, Em, listen up. We’ve reached the final stage of the mission: Syrup Patrol.”
She perks up immediately, her legs pausing their rhythmic swing. “What’s the mission?”
“I need you to investigate every square inch of these counters. If you see a sticky spot, you neutralize it and wipe it down. If there’s any spots sticky enough to catch a fly by the end, we’ve lost the mission. Think you can handle the responsibility?”
She straightens up, puffing out her chest, and gives me a salute that’s equal parts adorable and hilariously off-kilter, her little fingers splayed against her forehead. “Aye aye, captain!”
I hand her a damp washcloth and watch her attack the laminate with a grim seriousness. She’s narrating her progress in a hushed whisper—“Got one here—ooh, it’s sneaky, hiding under the plate. And another! This one’s huge, like a monster blob!”—and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from ruining her professional focus.
Once the kitchen is back to a reasonable state of order, I move to the living room where there’s a basket of laundry that’s been sitting there since yesterday. Laundry accumulates fast around here—I’ve learned that quickly. Between Emma’s constant spills and outfit changes, Leo’s work clothes and the general chaos of life with a five-year-old, the basket is never actually empty. It’s basically a sentient being that grows overnight.
“Okay, Em,” I call out, snagging a rogue sock. “Time for the Matching Game. If you find two that are the same, you get to throw them into the basket like a basketball.”
“Deal!” she squeals, her eyes gleaming with competitive fire. We sit on the rug, and for twenty minutes, the only sounds are the softthumpof rolled-up cotton hitting the wicker basket and Emma’s running commentary on why her father only owns black socks.
I’m midway through folding a pair of his khakis—trying very hard not to think about how they look on him—when the bedroom door finally creaks open.
It’s Leo, stumbling out of his bedroom like he’s just been beamed down from another galaxy, blinking against the sunlight streaming in through the blinds. His dark hair is a glorious mess, sort of hot in a mad-scientist way, and there’s a crease from the pillow etched across his cheek. He rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand, his broad shoulders slumping under the weight of lingering grogginess.
“Well, well, well,” I say, smoothing out one of Emma’s tiny shirts. “Look who decided to join the land of the living.”
He blinks at me, then at Emma, then around the apartment like he’s trying to figure out where he is. “What time is it?”
His voice is gravelly, thick with sleep, and it sends a little shiver down my spine that I pointedly ignore. “Closing in on noon, sleeping beauty.”
