I study her. “You weren’t expecting this?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I had envisioned some black and white bachelor pad.”
My lips curve. “You know what that says about you?”
She rolls her eyes. “I don’t want to hear it.”
I walk over to where she is leaning against the counter and put my hands on both sides of her. “That you’re shallow.”
Her lips part in shock. “How is that shallow?!”
“You judged me without knowing me.” I put on a disappointed expression. “That also hurts my feelings.”
She tilts her head away. “You’re so dramatic.”
“I have fragile feelings, Miranda. And you keep hurting them.” I maintain the aggrieved façade, and she shakes her head. She’s not pushing me away or complaining that I’ve boxed her in. She just watches me, mildly annoyed.
“Fragile feelings my foot.”
I lean closer, and when her breath catches, I smirk. “Want a glass of wine?”
“If it gets you out of my face, then yes.”
I press my lips to her cheek, and she lets out a startled sound. I feel her move but dance out of her reach when she tries to pinch me. “Too slow.”
Ethan comes thundering back in. “Dad, I’m hungry!”
“Be patient,” I tell him. “The food will get here in a while.”
“I can cut him an apple if he wants.” Miranda picks one up from the fruit bowl. “You want me to cut you one?”
Ethan follows her to the island counter and scrambles onto the stool. As I watch her slice the apple for him, smiling as he goes on and on about the most random topics, I notice the way his legs are kicking happily.
He loves her. It’s written all over him, in the way his legs kick and the way he keeps angling his whole body toward her like she’s something warm and steady.
The sight makes my chest tighten.
She’d be good for him. She already is. And some part of me, the part I’ve spent four years burying under contracts and press schedules and locked doors, recognizes exactly what that means. I know what it costs to let someone in. I know what it costs when they leave.
I’m not doing that again.
She gives me a strange look from across the counter. I realize I’ve been staring. I look away.
The food arrives in eighteen minutes. Ethan eats his noodle dish with the dedication of someone who hasn’t had a meal in days, leaves rings of sauce on three surfaces, and announces with total certainty that he isn’t tired while fighting to keep his eyes open between sentences.
“Bed,” I tell him.
“Not tired.”
“Ethan.”
His lower lip wobbles. He turns to Miranda. “I’m not tired.”
“Your eyes are closing,” she says, smiling at him.
“They’re not.” They are absolutely closing. “Miranda, will you do my bedtime?”
She looks at me, a question in her eyes.
