Page 270 of Safe With You

He laughed from the stove. “Don’t put that on me.”

“Seems convenient.”

“Take it up with your girl.”

Mila looked between us. “Are you gonna help me?”

I picked up a marker. “Apparently.”

Mila was already digging through her markers by the time I sat down, completely unconcerned with whether I’d agreed to any of this.

Across the kitchen, Ellis reached for the garlic bread like this was all perfectly normal.

And somehow, it was starting to feel that way to me too.

For once, I didn’t immediately reach for the part of me that wanted to figure out exactly what he meant.

I sat down beside Mila instead.

“What’s the first word?”

She pushed the paper toward me.

“Because.”

I looked at her.

“You need help using because in a sentence?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Because your daddy made me do homework on my night off, I’m taking all the banana pudding home.”

“I heard that,” Ellis said.

I smiled.

“I know.”

Mila giggled and lowered her pencil to the paper.

“Don’t write that,” Ellis told her.

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

I pointed at him. “There you go. That’s your sentence.”

Mila looked between us before writing something down.

Ellis narrowed his eyes. “What did you put?”

She covered the paper with both hands.

“Nothing.”

“That means she wrote it,” I said.