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“To be truthful, I’m not sure anymore.”
“Neither am I,” she said softly.
27
Doing It Together
The next morning, Brent was up bright and early and made breakfast for Vivian. She always did so much for him and it was the least he could do.
He was hoping for cereal he could pour milk over but no such luck.
Toast, he could manage that, and scramble some eggs, so that was what he’d do.
“What are you doing?” she asked, walking into the kitchen. She’d showered and was dressed, having gotten up before him. She was always an early riser, but he’d snuck out of bed and came down here first.
“Making you breakfast,” he said. “Not doing that great of a job of it, but I haven’t set the smoke alarms off yet so that’s a plus.”
“Happy New Year,” she said, moving closer to kiss him on the lips. He turned and pulled her into his arms. He was still a little shaken over their conversation about living in the dark last night. Yeah, some guilt there on his part. He wasn’t so sure what it meant on hers. He supposed it had to do with her mother or maybe her father that she never talked about.
He didn’t push when he wanted to. He asked and she didn’t talk. He couldn’t do much more than that.
Well, he could. No, had to tell himself no.
“Same to you,” he said. “And now the eggs are burning.”
She laughed and stood back. “Go at it. This is nice. Did you let Sammie out yet?”
“I did. She is waiting for her breakfast if you want to deal with that.”
He looked at his dog who was eying him for some of the eggs too. “She wants what you are making. How often do you make her eggs?”
“I plead the fifth, but I’ll give her some of these.”
“Then I’ll take care of the toast that popped up. This is nice doing it together.”
“You don’t want me helping you with dinner, trust me.”
“No. I’ve seen what you eat when you are alone and I’m guessing it’s because you don’t know how to cook, so I’ll take care of those meals.”
They ate their breakfast in quiet and he was fine with that. He liked how she didn’t expect him to always carry on conversations and he suspected she didn’t care to do it either.
By the end of the next day, he was packing up and leaving. “Why don’t you keep your clothes here and I’ll wash them,” she said. “If you want. One less thing for you to bring next week.”
“That works for me,” he said, not bothering to go up and get them.
When she was in the kitchen putting a dish of leftovers for him together he went to her office to get her laptop. He’d fix it for her when he got home. It wouldn’t take long and would give him something to do since there wasn’t anything on TV.
They both had to work tomorrow and though she wasn’t kicking him out of the house, this was their routine and he’d stick to it. He was happy his mother didn’t ask him to come down yesterday for dinner again. He loved his family and all, but he’d just seen them and wasn’t in the mood to be the center of attention again.
It was going to be the anniversary of Rob’s death in less than two weeks and his family was watching him too closely. He’d thought they were thrilled he was on what they considered a road to recovery and yet they were looking at him to break again.
He wasn’t going to. Rob wouldn’t let him.
Neither would Vivian.
“Give me a kiss to hold me over,” he said.
“You’re awfully playful more than normal,” she said. “Breakfast for me yesterday, wanting kisses. It used to be I had to ask you for things that were right in front of your face.”
