AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Raining?” Oh gosh. I should have just asked him to join me. Played it off with wit and confidence, instead of standing here like a possum in the porch light.
“Oh no. We’re not changing the subject.” Amusement shimmered in his smoky blue eyes. “Where’d you learn to move like that?”
“Cleaning day dance parties with my mom. She loves to dance, and I guess she realized if she turned cleaning into a party, it would be more enjoyable.”
“Is it?”
“Obviously. Dancing makes everything better.”
He placed his keys on the table by the door. “Are you cooking?”
“I put a roast in the oven. I figured, even if Gio isn’t home, you still need to eat.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“It was nothing.” I motioned to the mop. “I’m going to put this away, and then you can be on your own for the evening.”
“Do you honestly think I’m going to eat an entire roast by myself?”
“I figured you can make roast beef sandwiches for lunch tomorrow.”
“Stay and have dinner with me. It’s the least I can do after you not only cooked it but also are cleaning my house. I do have a cleaning lady who comes once a week.”
“Mabel is a sweetheart and very thorough, but I was raised to always leave a space how you found it, and with the rain, I thought a good mop was needed.”
Franc kicked off his shoes. “As a kid, my mom would have a coronary if we came into the house after she mopped. Most of the time, she’d make us stay outside until the floor dried.”
“My mom and I would play the floor is lava and jump from one dry spot to the next.” A smile spread across my face at the memory. “One time I jumped to the carpet under the kitchen table except my balance was off. I swayed, grabbed the table in my haste to straighten, but fell over anyway, taking the tablecloth and all the contents on the table with me. Including my glass of fruit punch. We had to pick everything up, and re-mop.”
Franc covered his mouth, but I could see his sad attempt at trying not to laugh. His lip twitched, and a strangled laugh slipped. “Sorry.”
“You can laugh. We did. Mom came to help me up and slipped in the fruit punch. She landed right next to me. We laughed so hard. We couldn’t get up. I think we stayed on that floor covered in fruit punch for at least a half an hour.”
“That’s amazing to me.”
“What?”
“How your mom turned something that could frustrate most parents into a lasting memory. Sometimes I wonder if Gio will have any good memories with me or if he’ll just remember me being stressed out and yelling at him.”
“You don’t yell.”
“I do on occasion. I try not to, but by the fifth time of asking him to do something, it’s kind of hard not to lose that little sliver of patience I have left. I always feel insanely guilty afterward.”
“If it makes you feel better, my mom yelled a few times. It wasn’t always laughter and fruit punch. But I don’t remember those times as much. Maybe I don’t want to, but they were little blips in our life. They don’t define our relationship. And besides, you have given Gio plenty of memories. He talks about you all the time.”
“Really?” His lip curved upward, a genuine pride radiating from his tanned face.
“He told me about how you guys went rock climbing with Uncle Brady about a month ago. How you took him camping last summer, which, by the way, he’s banking on you taking him again. He’s also told me about how you brought him on the tractor at work and let him hold the steering wheel.”
Franc didn’t say anything for a moment. Then his eyes met mine. “Thank you.”
I nodded, the air in the room seeming to suck out. Electricity sparked a line between our gazes, sending a rush of desire coursing through my veins. He wasn’t even near me, but all he had to do was look into my eyes, and I was a puddle of want and need.
It was those damn eyes. They didn’t just look at me. No, they pierced deep into my soul. I wondered what he could see and if he liked it at all.
The timer went off, jolting me and breaking our connection. “The roast is done,” I announced as I ran into the kitchen. I grabbed two oven mitts and reached in for the roasting pan. I took it out, placed it on the stovetop, and hip checked the oven door.
“That smells amazing,” he said. “Please eat with me.”
