“What are you thanking me for?”
“For whatever it is you’re going to go do with Rohan. He needs the attention.”
His chest softened at that. And, since he didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t add a whole helping of awkward with their arrangement, he said nothing at all.
“Can he have doughnuts?” he asked. Because it wasn’t a trip to the hardware store without a pastry.
She let out a breathy laugh. “Yeah, he can. No dairy, though. There’s a vegan bakery up on the corner he likes.”
Jack pressed a kiss to her forehead because he still could. “We’ll be back.”
“Why does your breath smell like crayons?” she whispered.
Well, that would be because, “Lola had an impromptu tea party.”
April apparently tried to hold in a laugh. She failed.
“Do you want to taste a crayon?” he asked, closing the door behind her and leaning in for a full mouth kiss.
“Crayon has never tasted so good,” she said, running her hands along his back, cupping him in the front.
This was like he was in high school hiding out in his bedroom with his first (and really, only) girlfriend so his parents wouldn’t catch him. Except this time they were hiding from April’s kids and he tasted like crayons.
“I’m going to get the doughnuts,” he said with a quick kiss on her lips.
“Bring some for the rest of us,” she called as he walked away, adjusting himself.
He turned. “Anything in particular?”
“Gluten-free for Harmony,” she said. “You might as well get extra of those, just in case.” She paused, thoughtful. “Probably grab something for Kitty, too. She’ll want one of the cherry fritters.”
The amount of grub and juice boxes the kids, and Kitty, went through had him convinced April was going to need another batch of sponsors for the podcast she’d agreed to host, just to keep them all in snacks.
“For you?” he asked, and yes, he used the deep tone he knew turned her right the hell on.
She studied him for a beat before whispering, “Surprise me.”
He could do that. Yes, he could do that.
When he’d come to Denver, he figured that he’d raise April’s confidence. As she’d said, helping her emerge from the ashes as a better, stronger version of herself.
He didn’t have to build her confidence, though—not when she had an abundance of it. She had just tucked it down deep and, apparently, forgotten it was there.
But as they’d spent the time on her image, her social accounts, and in the bedroom—also out of the bedroom—he hadn’t seen her confidence grow from ashes.
No, it’d bloomed from within.
…
“I’ve never heard of a frog sanctuary before.” Rohan helped Jack unwind the wire mesh over the top of the plastic pool.
They’d come to an agreement that Rohan would use human words with Jack, like he did at school, since Jack didn’t speak frog. In return, Jack had bought Rohan a whole cup of dairy-free doughnut holes.
“I hadn’t heard of a neighbor like Kitty before I came here,” Jack said. “That doesn’t mean she didn’t exist.”
Rohan grinned up at him. “Kitty doesn’t usually make sense.”
That was the truth. Jack stapled the wire to the plastic. That should hold, even against the Colorado snowpack coming in a few months.
