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For the first time, I laughed at the memory of the morning.
"Ah, well, you don't seem like such a bad guy, Zach."
"I'm not. Like I said, it was an off morning." He winked.
Just then, my cell phone rang. I dug into my purse, grabbing it to see my home number on the screen. Instantly, my eyes flashed to the clock just above the counter, and I realized an hour had already passed. I quickly answered the call, let the boys know I was on my way, and hung up.
"That’s my cue. I’ve got to pick up the pizza," I said, sliding my phone back into my purse.
He glanced at his watch. "Now that you mention it, I'm late to get my pizza and Grace," he said, climbing out of the booth.
"Thank you for the coffee."
"Thank you. It was nice to talk to someone other than an eleven-year-old while I try to braid her hair." Zach chuckled, placing his hand on my lower back as we headed out the door. "Perhaps we could do this again sometime?" he questioned.
I turned and looked into those blue eyes of his. "That would be nice. You know where to find me."
"Look forward to it," Zach said as he followed me into The Deep Dish to pick up his pizza as well.
I waved goodbye to Zach, climbed in my car, and headed toward home. It had been nice to go out with an adult, and it had cleared my first thoughts of him from my mind. I looked forward to meeting him again soon.
Zach
Tools were everywhere. Repairs and renovations had just begun, and I was already done with it all. Every contractor had some sort of problem today that I had to deal with. I was beyond exhausted and had never been so happy to see a day end as I was today. I'd just shut and locked the front door and was on my way into the kitchen when Grace came flying down the stairs, cell phone in hand. It hadn't been my idea to give an eleven-year-old a cell phone. It had been her mother's. Valerie had done many things I wasn't happy with this past summer, but that one was the icing on the cake.
"I told you, I don't want you spending time on that thing," I called.
She completely ignored me, heading toward the kitchen. I followed behind her and stepped into the kitchen, only to find her digging through the cupboard where I kept all her snacks.
"What are you doing now?" I demanded.
"Getting a snack," she muttered with her head in the cupboard.
"It's almost time for dinner. You don't need a snack," I replied, waiting for her to pop her head out of the cupboard. When she did, I snatched her cell phone from her hand.
"Dad!"
"Grace, I told you. I don't want you on that thing. Now, you must have some homework to do."
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and took off for the stairs. "I'm calling Mom."
"Go ahead!"I yelled just as my mother came into the kitchen.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Fine,” I barked.
We both looked toward the hall as Grace stomped up the stairs as hard as she could, and then slammed her bedroom door shut, causing the plaster on the ceiling of the kitchen to fall onto the countertops. I gripped the edge of the counter and took a deep breath, trying hard to not lose my temper at the sight of one more thing that needed to be repaired.
“Well, I guess I will add the kitchen ceiling to the list of repairs,” my mother said, grabbing a pen and the list of all the things that we needed to repair.
“I’m going to go upstairs and have a chat with little miss attitude,” I grumbled, heading toward the bottom of the stairs when the phone rang.
“Zach, it’s for you. It’s one of the contractors!” my mother yelled.
I'd had it out with two contractors today and just didn't have the will to have another conversation with one of them or one with my daughter. Plus, I had a pile of things to do after Grace was in bed, so I turned around and made my way back into the kitchen and took the phone from my mother.
We'd eaten out the last three nights. I needed to make something homemade. After hanging up the phone, I scratched my head as I looked in the cupboards to see what there was for dinner and then went to the drawer where my mother had shoved a pile of easy to make recipes there. I sifted through them, finally deciding on chicken tacos.
