"Funny," she tilts her head to the side."He's never told me about you.Who are you and what are you doing in my brother's house with my niece?"
Quickly I fill her in on the fact that I work with Molly, and that I met Darren at the Lean To.I gloss over the situation with Gerald, and keep it at a short few minutes."So I'm staying here until we can figure out what's going to happen with him."
"Looks like you're enjoying yourself."The smirk that spreads across her face says that she can see the beard burn and love bite, and she knows exactly what we've been doing.
"He's got an eight pack," I defend myself.
She laughs loudly."I feel ya, girl.He's my brother so I don't see it, but I've heard it almost my entire life."
"He loves tacos," Ella says as we stand at the stove a few hours later."And honestly, so do I, so I vote for that for dinner."
"Tacos it is."I pull out the ground beef from the fridge, and Ella starts digging through the cabinets like she knows where everything is.Which I guess she does, and I find myself wishing that I knew where everything was.
"Seasoning's in the second drawer, not the first.Darren keeps rearranging things and it drives me insane every single time I come over."She finds the packet, tosses it onto the counter next to me."So how long have you actually known my brother?"
"A few months.I work with Molly, like I said.Sometimes after work, we’d go over to the Lean To, and he'd come in after shift sometimes, too.We saw each other a few times."I crumble the beef into the pan, turn the heat on beneath it."We got to talking eventually.Then we’d dance every time we saw each other."
"That sounds about right.He likes to keep his pleasure away from Nicole after what happened with her mom."She grabs a knife and starts chopping tomatoes without me even asking."But he must like you because he’s asked you to stay here."
"This wasn't exactly normal circumstances."
"No, I guess it wasn't."Her voice softens, and I can tell she's thinking about everything I told her earlier, the short version I gave her about Gerald and needing somewhere safe to stay."I'm glad he's got someone right now.He doesn't let a lot of people in since Nic's mom left."
I don't know what to say to that, so I just keep stirring the beef, watching it brown, letting the work fill the silence instead of my own voice.Ella doesn't push, just keeps chopping, and after a minute she starts humming something under her breath, off-key and happy.
"You want lettuce shredded or just torn?"she asks.
"Shredded's fine."
We fall into an easy rhythm after that, her pulling out plates and shells while I finish the meat, both of us moving around each other in the kitchen like we've done this before.It's strange how comfortable it feels, considering I met her a handful of hours ago.
Nicole wakes up from her nap right as I'm draining the grease from the pan, and I hear her door open before she comes barreling down the hallway, hair sticking up on one side from where she slept on it wrong.
"Aunt Ella!"She launches herself at her aunt's legs, and Ella scoops her right up, peppering her face with kisses until Nicole's giggling too hard to breathe.
"Hey, munchkin.You have a good nap?"
"Uh huh.Macie and me painted."She points toward the fridge, where her handprint painting from earlier is hanging crooked under a magnet.
"I saw that.It's beautiful."Ella sets her back down, and Nicole runs straight to my legs instead, wrapping her arms around my knee like she's been doing it her whole life instead of just the last few days.
"Are you staying?"Nicole asks, but it sounds all jumbled up.
"I sure am.We're having tacos."
"Yay!"Nicole starts spinning in a circle, arms out, the way toddlers do when they're excited and don't quite know what to do with all that energy.I finish setting the taco meat into a bowl, and when I turn back around, she's still spinning, giggling every time she gets dizzy enough to stumble.
"You want to dance instead of spin?"I ask her, wiping my hands on the dish towel.
"Dance!"She grabs my hands, tugging me away from the counter, and I let her pull me into the open space by the kitchen table.
Ella laughs, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed."Oh, this should be good."
There's no music playing, but that doesn't stop Nicole from swaying her hips back and forth, so I match her, swinging her little hands side to side while she giggles up at me.She lets go to spin again, and I clap along, and somewhere in the middle of it I start humming a tune, something upbeat with no real words, just enough to give her a rhythm to move to.
"Spin me!"she demands, and I take both her hands again, turning in a slow circle while she squeals, feet stumbling over themselves trying to keep up.
I haven't laughed this hard in longer than I can remember.Not the kind that comes out polite or forced, but the kind that just bubbles up out of nowhere because a two-year-old's joy is the most contagious thing in the world.Ella's laughing too, phone out now, clearly recording the whole thing for blackmail material later.
