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‘When did you last eat?’ Paige asked.
‘I had some lunch leftovers. Why?’
Paige had all but snarled. Great they were back to snarky Paige, only one step up from the nods.
‘When did you last eat?’ Melanie retorted wondering if Paige suffered from being hangry. It would explain a lot.
‘Why are you doing that face, Pwaige?’ Alfie asked.
‘What face?’
‘Monster face grrrrr.’
Melanie grinned, he was spot on, and Sophie laughed too.
‘Right, finish your tea, we’re going to do bath first, then you can read your school book to Paige and Sophie and then they’ll tuck you in and read you your other books. How does that sound?’ Melanie was using her optimistic overly positive child friendly voice.
Paige shook her head. ‘Wanna hang out with me and Soph?’
‘Yeah!’
‘Cool, go get a bath, and shout us when you’re done, right?’
‘Yes,’ Alfie said before finishing his last bite.
‘Right, Alf, have a nice bath,’ Paige said, picking him up off the barstool. But as she went to put him down, Melanie watched as he pushed his arms over her shoulders and wrapping them around her neck.
‘Up, up.’
‘You have no chill, Alf.’ But Paige lifted him back up again until he was sat on her hip. ‘Here, this is yours,’ Paige said, tickling his ribs so he’d let go of her neck, as she passed him over to Melanie.
Melanie pressed a kiss to his cheek. ‘Come on then little man. Let’s get you ready for bed.’
* * *
The bath time had been highly energetic simply because Alfie was so eager to play with his new friends and Melanie knew that actually getting this kid to sleep was going to be hard work tonight. She’d try and get some work done while they did the book reading but she strongly suspected she’d be stepping in.
But he was in his PJs now and studying his bookcase, picking out the books to read. There was already a pile ten high.
’That’s enough, Alfie. You’ll be up all night.’
‘Two more? Pwease?’
Paige stepped in at that point. ‘I’m OK with two more if Auntie Mel is, so long as they’re Disney stories.’
Alfie cheered, Melanie shrugged, and mentally wished them all good luck.
‘Don’t worry, we won’t need it, we’ll be fine, but we’ll shout you if needed. Have you got the monitor on?’ Paige asked.
She must have said that out loud. ‘Yeah, I’ll have the monitor. Night night, little man, give me a cuddle.’
‘Night, Auntie Mel. Love you.’
‘Love you too. Sweet dreams and be good, OK?’
Paige sat down on the floor and Alfie pushed back to be let go of, and sat down next to his new best mate and Sophie followed.
Melanie made it five minutes downstairs before she heard, ‘No, Sophie, that’s not how you do the voices. Do it like Pwaige.’
