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As I brushed my teeth, I frowned into the mirror. Maybe I was stepping too far over the line here. The moment Harley had shown up, I had jumped right in with both feet and had been calling the shots. I needed to ask him if I was getting in the way. This was his son, not mine, and not ours.
I grabbed my robe off the back of the door and told Harley to follow me to the kitchen so we could make coffee before I showed him how to make breakfast.
The coffee was brewing, and we were preheating the oven when Mike joined us, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I had seen the man naked, but I had never paid much attention to his legs. Was it possible for a man to have sexy knees and calves? If so, he won, hands down.
“So, how do you make this?” he asked as he leaned his elbows on the counter.
“Well, first, you start by laying the bread on the cookie sheet. Then you spread copious amounts of butter on them.”
“Copious?” Harley asked with a scrunched-up face.
“It means a lot.”
Mike chuckled. “Yeah, you can never have too much butter.”
I was using a knife to spread the butter, and Harley was sitting on the counter beside me, watching. He stuck his finger in the butter and then shoved it into his mouth before I realized what he was doing. “Um, butter is good.”
“You’ve never had butter before?” I asked him.
“I don’t think so,” he replied with a shake of his head. “I only eat hot dogs, remember?”
“Well…” I looked at him thoughtfully. “We will have to expand your diet, Harley. Hot dogs are not nutritious, and a growing boy needs proper nutrition.”
“What’s nutrition?”
Mike jumped in and explained that to him while I collected the cinnamon and sugar and then a fresh lemon out of the fridge. I spooned some sugar into a bowl and then shook the cinnamon. Harley leaned over. “That smells good. Can I taste it?”
“No, you can’t eat cinnamon alone. It doesn’t taste good but tastes delicious when you add it to other things.” He nodded, and I handed him the spoon. “I want you to stir that carefully until all the sugar is brown.”
“What’s brown?” he asked, and I froze. Didn’t he know what brown was?
“It’s a color. Do you know what colors are, Harley?”
“I’ve heard of them, but I don’t think I know what they are.”
I took a slow breath as my gaze snapped to Mike and then back. “Colors are used to describe things.” I lifted the cinnamon jar. “Cinnamon is brown; the cap is red; the sugar is white.” I pointed to each of them. “The shirt you are wearing is orange; my robe is pink, and my counter is black. Did you know what any of those colors were?”
He shook his head, his eyes wide.
“Well, alright, we will teach you your colors. Do you see anything in here that has a color you like?”
He looked around and then pointed at a towel hanging from the stove. “I like that color.”
I grabbed the towel. “This is green. You like green.”
He smiled. “I like green.”
“Okay, so, you see the white sugar?” He nodded. “I want you to mix that brown cinnamon around until all the sugar is a light-brown color.”
He nodded and focused his attention on the bowl. Some of the sugar spilled out, but I just reminded him to do it slowly as I went to collect a knife to cut the lemon.
“Harley.” He lifted his face to mine. “This is a lemon, and it is yellow.”
He stared at it. “I like yellow too.”
“I do too. Yellow is my favorite color,” I replied.
As I cut the lemon, Mike whispered in my ear, “You amaze me.”
