“You decided that?”
“Therapist suggested it. Roman yelled it. You would agree with it. Annoying coalition.”
“Good call.”
“Don’t praise me before coffee. I’ll get emotional and blame dehydration.”
I leaned over and kissed the side of his head.
He went quiet under it.
In the kitchen, he stood too close to me while I made coffee, not touching at first, just occupying the same narrow strip of floor as if distance had become an insult. Tiny parked himself between our legs and made breakfast preparation nearly impossible. Twice I had to step around his massive head. Once Jace bumped into me reaching for mugs and muttered, “Sorry,” though there was nothing sorry in the way his hand stayed at my waist for two seconds too long.
I made eggs. Toast. Cut up oranges because Jace found them in the fridge and held them up like a discovery.
“Tiny gets one,” he said.
“Tiny gets half of one.”
“He’s emotionally fragile.”
“He’s one hundred and sixty pounds.”
“Feelings don’t scale by weight.”
Tiny drooled on the floor.
Jace looked down. “See? Devastated.”
We ate at the kitchen island. Jace sat with one foot hooked on the rung of the stool, knee moving in a restless rhythm that sped up whenever he checked the time and slowed whenever he took a bite. He forgot his fork twice. He fed Tiny a piece of egg when he thought I wasn’t looking. Tiny accepted it like a sacred offering.
I didn’t correct him.
I wanted a thousand mornings like that.
The thought landed with such force that I set my coffee down before I dropped it.
Jace noticed. He always noticed more than people gave him credit for, even when half his attention was being dragged in five directions.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was not a nothing face.”
“I was thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
“About groceries.”
His expression changed immediately.
The joke fell out of his hands.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
