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“No really. Who are you people?” I ask. “Did I fall asleep in the tub? Is this a dream?”
“We’re making the mac and cheese!” Jamie says.
“But how do you–”
“We’ve made it a hundred times, Mommy,” Jamie says. “I know how!”
Marcus winks at me and says, “I found a recipe on Pinterest.”
He’s speaking my actual love language.
“You have Pinterest?” I ask in disbelief.
“I do now,” he says. “I downloaded it to hunt down the recipe. I hope you don’t mind. It meant I had to hunt you down, too. You have a lot of Pinterest boards, by the way.”
“Mommy loves that Pinterest game,” Jamie says.
I blush. “For work, obviously.”
“Nah-hah! You play it all the time, not just at work,” Jamie rattles off.
Marcus smiles.
“Well, it…smells amazing…” I say, shooting Jamie a look that just makes him laugh. When the food is ready, I grab pasta bowls, load them up, and head to the table.
“Do you want a beer?” I ask Marcus.
“As long as it’s not an IPA,” he says and I laugh.
“I could tell the moment I saw you at the brewhouse that you are not a brewery kinda guy,” I say, grabbing two cans of Guinness from the fridge and closing the door with my heel. I grab two tall glasses because it’s basically sacrilegious to drink a nitro from a can and bring everything to the table.
“I don’t have a problem with breweries–per se–,” he tells me as we pour our beers and watch the creamy foam rise to the top. “It’s the people. It’s like it’s become hip to drink eight dollar beer that tastes like orange rind and tree bark. Gross. It’s like these places want you to bring your kids and your dogs and your grandma and your mailman…” Marcus shakes his head. “No offense to Jamie here; he’s great company. But no, breweries are not my scene.”
“So then, what is your scene?” I ask, sitting down at the table and reaching for my glass.
Marcus gives that some thought as he sips his beer. Then he looks around the table at me watching him and Jamie munching away on mac and cheese, paying no attention to anything else. And a small smile starts to form on his normally slack lips.
He looks me right in the eyes and says: “This. Drinking a beer in a comfortable place with people whose company I actually enjoy,” he answers.
I’m gobsmacked. I literally have no idea what to say to that.
Chapter 22
Marcus
“Jamie? Jamie, make sure you don’t drop that candle,” Natalie says as she hurries around in the now mostly dark room.
“Why? Cause I’d set the house on fire?” Jamie asks, walking with as much care as a four-year-old with a lit emergency candle can.
Right after dinner, as we were putting things in the sink, Jamie went into the living room to turn on a movie and the lights flickered before going out completely. Natalie and I were going to work some while Jamie was distracted by a movie, but that plan changed. I’m fine with it, really. I didn’t really want to work anyway…even if it is an urgent matter. I checked the fuse box just to be sure, but as I assumed, the outage is because of the storm. So we’ve resorted to cell phone flashlights and three Bath and Body Works candles. The house now smells like flowers and pie.
“This is crazy,” Natalie says, and I shine my light over to her. She’s standing in the middle of the room, checking her phone, which is blowing up in her hand.
“Everything okay?” I ask. “I mean, other than the power going out?”
“Yeah. Brittany said her building still has power and asked if we want to come over,” she says.
“I want to go to Miss Brittany’s!” Jamie says. “Can I go over there to watch the movie? She said the next time I come over we can make snickerdoodles.”
