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“Dad?”
I look down at Ava and she’s looking up at me.
“Can Emy have dinner with us?”
I tuck my hands into my pockets as I think it over.
Emery smiles. “Hey, what are you two doing?” She stops in front of us, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Emy, dinner time,” Ava says, jumping up and down.
“Yeah.” I nod. “You want to join us for dinner?”
Her brows pull together as she looks at me.
“I mean, don’t expect anything extravagant. It’s just a pot of chili.”
Her eyes move from me, to Ava, and back. “Are you sure?”
I nod. “Yeah, we’d love to have you. Come on.”
Emery follows us into the fenced-in yard. Ava runs ahead of us, singing and bouncing with excitement. I push open the sliding glass doors and lead the way into the kitchen. “Ava, go wash up for dinner.”
Ava runs from the room to do as she’s told.
I step in front of the stove, taking the lid off the pot and stirring the chili.
“Are you sure about this? We talked about taking it slow. I just assumed that meant hiding it from Ava until we knew where things were going.”
I turn to face her. “I know, but I’ve been doing some thinking.”
She leans against the island. “About?”
“Ava is already going to get attached to you just because she sees you every day. I thought that we can just be friends in front of her and then be something more when she isn’t watching.”
“And if things go bad between us and I suddenly stop coming over as a friend, then what?”
I put my hands on her hips. “Then we’ll deal with that when the time comes. For right now though…” I lean in, pressing my mouth to hers lightly.
Her hands fist my shirt, pulling me closer. Her lips part more, allowing my tongue to slide inside. Our kiss is soft and light and it isn’t rushed. Still, my body reacts to her. My heart starts to beat a little faster and every muscle hardens.
The sound of little feet slapping against the floor hits my ears and I quickly take a step back, breaking our kiss just moments before Ava runs into the kitchen.
“All clean,” she says, showing me her hands.
I laugh. “Good job. You want to help Emery set the table for us?”
She smiles and nods.
The girls get the table set and then we all have a seat around it to start eating. Ava does most of the talking for us, telling us about the day she had at daycare. She forces Emery to talk about daycare as well, and then she moves on to telling Emery about what we’ve done since we got home. The kid sure can talk. There’s almost never a quiet minute throughout the whole meal. Finally, we finish up and she runs off to the living room to play and watch TV while Emery insists on helping me clean up the kitchen.
“That went well. Don’t you think?” She puts a bowl into the sink as I rinse dishes to load into the dishwasher.
“I think so.” I look over my shoulder at her. “But I would like to have dinner one night just the two of us.”
She grins as she looks at me while she wipes the table clean. “I think that can be arranged on my side but what are you going to do with Ava?”
I close the dishwasher and lean against the counter with my arms crossed over my chest. “I’ll get ahold of my mom, see if she’ll be able to keep her one night this weekend.”
