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“Great, you’d only get in the way anyway.”
I moved to the dining table, pulling out my tablet and settling into the admin. It was just quotes and reconciling payments, easy, familiar work that allowed me to pay attention to what was going on in the kitchen without seeming to.
It was a little tense at first, because I guess they were both still amped from the afternoon’s events. But I saw how Allegra gradually relaxed into it, giving Jesse instructions, patiently explaining each process, teasing him gently and making him giggle once in a while.
Leaning back in the chair, I did allow myself to watch unashamedly when she’d finished making the pizza dough and was stretching it out by throwing it in the air, catching it, then throwing it again. “Now your turn.” She threw it at Jesse, who only just managed to catch it, in his surprise.
“I can’t do that.”
“Sure you can. The trick is to flick your wrists when you throw it up. Like this.” She showed him, but he still held onto it, too scared to try. “Dude, what’s the worst that can happen? It falls on the floor and we start over. That’s it.”
“You won’t be mad?”
“Fu— nope, but I’ll probably laugh. And go.” He did it, very tentatively, and although I could see it wasn’t great, barely going higher than his head and not spinning at all, Ally praised him enthusiastically. “That’s it! Go again! Just a bit higher, so it gets some good air.” When he did it again, this time with more confidence, she clapped her hands in excitement. “Perfect! I’ll make an Italian out of you yet.”
The whole interaction was outrageously adorable, making me feel all sorts of weird feelings. That, of course, made me drag my gaze away, back down to my very boring spreadsheets. Things went quiet in the kitchen for a little bit, while they finished the dough and started slicing up the toppings. My ears perked up at the next exchange, though.
“My glasses are going to come soon.”
“That’s great!” A pause, in which I guessed that Ally shot Jesse a look, or maybe it was the other way around. “That’s not great?”
“Silas at school says that girls don’t like boys with glasses.”
“Well, two things about that. If Silas is in your class, I don’t know why he’s even thinking about girls. But also if he’s in your class, I’m gonna go ahead and say he has no idea what he’s talking about. I love this chopping knife Zara and Matt gave you, don’t you? Yep, just cut it a bit smaller, so you don’t have big huge chunks of green pepper on the pizza. Now, where were we?”
“Girls don’t like guys that wear glasses.”
“Maybe some girls don’t, but some girlslovea guy in glasses.”
“Do you?”
That made me grin, and I didn’t even try to hide it. She was caught now, well and truly.
Clearing her throat, she said, “Sure do.”
There was a long silence. “Gabe wears glasses.”
“Does he? I hadn’t noticed.”
I glanced up to find Jesse looking across at me, a puzzled look on his face. Since I was literally sitting there with glasses on my face, his confusion made sense. Ally shot me aDon’t you darescowl and I forced the grin from my face and went back to my spreadsheets.
“Are you gonna stay for dinner?”
Taking the change of subject gratefully, Ally said, “It’s a school night, kiddo, so probably not.”
“But you made it, you should help eat it.”
“We can have dinner early,” I offered. She bit her lip in that way that always made my pulse leap. Forcing my voice to sound neutral, I continued. “Jesse doesn’t go to bed until seven thirty, so there’s plenty of time. You’re welcome to stay.”
“Please?”
“Oh, all right then.” She seriously couldn’t resist my kid.
I’d never considered myself a dull dinner companion before, but I quickly realized I couldn’t remotely hold a candle to Ally. She had Jesse pretty much in stitches the whole night. Honestly, I’d never heard him laugh so much. It started when she sliced up the pizza and handed him his plate with her eyes crossed, pretending she couldn’t see him properly. Then she told him of the “ancient Italian custom” of, apparently, wiggling your ears to signal your enjoyment of the food and thank the chef. This meant that any time he took a bite of pizza, he wiggled his ears, which made it pretty hard to eat properly. The whole thing was hilarious and adorable and I could see that Jesse loved every second of it.
She also seemed to have an intuitive sense of when to dial it down, and as we got closer to finishing dinner, she got a little quieter, not whipping him up so much. This made it way easier for me when I had to announce it was time for bed. “We’ll just clean up, then you can brush your teeth and go to bed.”
Although his face scrunched up in disappointment, he didn’t argue or complain. “Will you read to me?”
