Chapter Twenty-Three
Sunday morning cracked open with a chilly breeze and heavy cloud cover, the perfect weather for Nash’s mood.
Kenzi had come back from her visit with her grandmother and sisters—the bigintervention—subdued. She sat at the bar, while he made a batch of cookies, and slowly peeled away the wrapper on a water bottle she didn’t drink from. When the timer went off, signaling the finished snickerdoodles, she excused herself and went to bed.
Not the fun-filled evening of feeding each other cookie bites he’d planned when he pulled up the recipe. Which was whyhewas grumpy this morning.
He showered and dressed and made his way to the kitchen for some oatmeal. Taste tester extraordinaire Charlie claimed oats grabbed onto bad cholesterol in the body and swept it right on through the bloodstream. If Charlie could eat ice cream every day and not have high cholesterol, then oatmeal was worth a try.
Kenzi looked up from a bowl of cream of wheat. “Good morning.”
“’Mornin’.” He rinsed out the small pan in the sink that Kenzi had used to make her hot cereal and measured out water. “How’d you sleep?”
“Not well.” She leaned into her hand, her elbow resting on the countertop. “You?”
“All right, I guess.”
“Listen to us. We already sound like an old married couple.”
“Makes sense. We’re both overachievers.”
The corners of her mouth lifted. “In a week we’ll be on the front porch in our rockers.”
“One can only hope.” Nash retrieved a bowl. The water boiled and he added the oats.
“Charlie talked you into eating oatmeal?”
“He had a convincing argument.” Nash rubbed the spot over his heart. “Death by ice cream is not the way I want to go.”
Kenzi stared into her bowl. “I could think of a few worse options.”
Nash ran his hand along the edge of the cool countertop. This was the part of his job where the lines got fuzzy. Was he supposed to talk through Kenzi’s personal and family issues with her, as her husband? Or was he supposed to stay out of her private life because he was an employee?
To heck with it all. “How did it go with your grandma?”
She grimaced. “Absolutely horrible. Thanks for asking.”
Nash poured the finished oatmeal into a bowl and added a tablespoon of brown sugar. “Anytime.” He opened the fridge in search of milk. “Am I allowed to know the details, or is this agirls onlything?”
“She told Raquel and me that we would never be friends and Lunette that she is a lush.”
“Nothing you didn’t already know.”
Kenzi used the side of her spoon to dig rows in her uneaten breakfast. “Is it so wrong that I want to be friends with my sisters?”
“It’s not wrong, but improbable, considering the situation.”
“So I should just give up?”
“You should keep a practical eye on things.”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Some family dynamics don’t allow friendships to develop.”
“Are you friends with your siblings?”
He paused, his spoon halfway to his mouth, the oatmeal clomping off the spoon and into the milk. How had this become about him? “I used to be.” He moved around the counter to sit on the stool next to hers. He’d be less likely to spill if he sat down to eat. And if they were going to continue on this line of questioning, he’d need to sit down.
