“Do you wanna watch TV with me? We can put on a movie.”
“Okay. Can I stay here?”
“Mhm. Let’s turn you around, though, so you can see.”
“Okay,” he whispers again.
I shift him on my lap so his back is pressed to my chest, and his head is dropped against my shoulder.
After flipping through the options, I settle on a baking show where the contestants have to make cakes look like real-life things. “I’ve seen some of these,” Theo says, his voice low. “It’s fun to guess which ones are real or fake.”
“I haven’t watched it yet.”
Theo hums, sinking deeper into me.
I have an arm wrapped around his stomach, and when he grabs it, I assume it’s so I don’t touch him there, so I don’t fight him. I’m surprised—although I guess I shouldn’t be—when he flips my hand over and starts drawing patterns on it.
It’s just as relaxing for me as it seems to be for him, and I hold him close as he runs his fingertips up and down the underside of mine and makes circles on my palm.
“Do you like this?” he whispers.
“You touching my hand?” I ask.
“Mhm. And me sitting in your lap. Do you want me to move?” He tenses like he’s expecting me to say yes.
“Don’t you dare, sweetheart. I want you to stay right here.”
Theo nods, his weight relaxing again and his fingers resuming their slow path. “You like this, huh?” I ask, wiggling my fingers under his.
“It’s soothing. I like touching you.”
“I like when you touch me. I’m glad it’s soothing.”
We’re at the part of the show where the bakers are showing off their cakes and the judges are trying to guess which one is cake.
“Holy shit,” I mumble, squinting at the TV. “I think maybe three, but I don’t actually know.”
“How do you figure it’s number three? It’s four.” There’s a hint of life in Theo’s voice, a bit of excitement that wasn’t there before.
I squint a little harder, my eyes flipping between the two of them. “It just looks… cakey.”
“No, it doesn’t. It looks like a fucking shoe.”
The judges lock in number three. “See. Told you. They think so too.”
Two minutes later, my jaw is on the floor, and Theo is turning in my lap to face me. “Told you it wasn’t number three.”
I drop a kiss on the tip of his nose. “Sure, but you don’t know that you’re right, either.”
With a huff, he turns back around as the host steps to number four. He slices right through the shoe, revealing cake.
“See,” Theo says, sounding smug. “Told you it was four.”
I can’t help but laugh. Maybe we should do this more often. I’m happy to be proven wrong if it makes him happy.
By the end of the episode, I’ve gotten every cake wrong, and Theo’s picked the correct one each time.
“I think you’re cheating. You’ve seen this episode.”
