“Good God, I need more sleep,” Hallie groaned and went back to her room. “Please remind him it’s Sunday! A day of resting!”
I sighed.
“Was that Hallie I heard up there?” Ash called. “Tell her I’m making pancakes with Nutella!”
Well, he clearly knew I was awake since I wasn’t in the living room—or my bedroom, as it were. Fucking pullout couch.
Hallie promptly opened the door to her room again. “I may as well eat now.”
I lifted my brows and watched her scurry down the stairs.
Okay, my turn. I couldn’t hide up here all day.
I hitched the laundry basket on my hip and trailed downstairs, braced for anything. The kids obviously loved seeingAsh in a great mood, but I wasn’t a fan. It just made things all the more painful. I missed him enough when he was brooding.
Casting a glance into the living room, I noticed Ash had returned the pullout to its couch origins as usual. He was quick to do that when he stopped by in the morning. The coffee table too.
I passed the kitchen on my way to the laundry room in the hallway, and I listened on one ear as Ash asked about Hallie’s plans for the day.
On my agenda, I had “get my shit together.”
It was a daily quest.
After starting the first load of laundry, I had no choice but to join the others in the kitchen and act like everything was great and that Ash and I had woken up next to each other.
I retied the drawstrings of my sweats, and I half regretted not putting on a T-shirt.
Hallie brought the pancakes to the table, causing Micah to wriggle excitedly in his seat.
Ash side-eyed me as he turned off the stove. “Damn, boy. The bed head librarian look works for me.”
Oh, shut up. We all knew he was the beauty and I was the brains. But sure, I wasn’t going to turn down the ego boost. I’d spent too many hours working out to let compliments go to waste. Especially when they came from him.
“Can you come with us to Uncle Theo and Auntie Claire, Daddy?” Lily asked me.
“Afraid I can’t, princess,” I replied, bringing our coffee to the table. “I have so many errands to run. I have some work to catch up on too, a boring meeting in a little bit, and then I’m picking up a chessboard for Micah.”
“Yeah!” Micah cheered.
I smiled?—
“Aww, younevercome with us!” Lily complained.
Unfortunately, you’ll find out why very soon, darling.
“Wait, what’s this?” Ash sat down at the table, focused on Micah. “You wanna learn chess?”
Our boy nodded proudly. “Hallie showed me on her laptop. It was fun.”
Ash didn’t need more than that to get fired up. “That’s fantastic, baby. I think you’ll like it. Maybe we got ourselves a future grand master right here, huh? Our next Kasparov or Polgár.”
Good grief. Leave it to Ash to already know stuff about a game he’d never claimed interest in. Then again, he had this thing where he researched the basics of most sports before a major championship. He didn’t always watch the games, but he followed the stats for some reason.
Micah snickered and hugged Ash’s arm. “I’m always gonna be Mikey!”
“Damn right, you will.” Ash dropped a kiss to the top of the boy’s head. “All right, let’s eat. I take it Dylan’s gonna sleep away the day.” He reached for some toast. “Can we just put it out there that Daddy’s hella handsome in his glasses?”
What the?—
