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“So we’re eating breakfast over here?” Pam’s mother’s voice rang from behind her as the back door to the kitchen opened.
“We sure are. Come on in and sit down. Guess I need to get the bacon out too.” He went back to the refrigerator.
“Hey! Are you here?” He recognized the voice that came down the hall as belonging to one of Pam’s girls, but they sounded so similar that he wasn’t entirely sure which one. He looked and saw Marilyn, with Hilda right beside her, coming in where his nieces had just entered a few minutes ago.
“I might need to borrow some food,” he said in a stage whisper to Pam.
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “I didn’t realize we were serving breakfast to the entire family this morning.”
They chuckled together. It never bothered him when the whole family got together and he was the only man. He thought about it a few times, and he and Pam had talked about it a few times. How funny it was that their family was mostly a family of women. It didn’t really affect him now, except the dynamic had changed a bit now that he and Pam were...together. Except, he was having trouble remembering if it was for real or for not real.
He really needed to talk to Pam.
“I’ll run over and grab what I have. I know I have at least one package of bacon, and I think I have a pound of sausage in the freezer.”
“Awesome,” he said. “And I can get it. You don’t have to.”
“Let me greet my girls first.”
Her words were shy as she looked at him with her brows lifted.
He nodded. “You go on.” He knew that it bothered her more than she let on that her girls spent more time with her mother than they did with her. She felt like her mother probably tried to get them to like her better like it was a competition. Pam didn’t typically complain about it, but it would bother anyone, he was sure. Even Pam, who sometimes seemed more like a saint than a regular human when it came to the patience she had with her mother.
He took a moment to watch as Pam took several hesitant steps forward as her daughters came down the hall. Not as quickly as his nieces had, but they didn’t seem upset. Not like Lynn had suggested they might be earlier.
Indeed, as they reached their mother, both of them put their arms out to hug her.
“Mom! You got married again!” Marilyn said.
Mark stopped at the door, watching. He didn’t want to miss this, not if Pam needed him for backup.
“You said you would never get married again. What’s up, Mom?” Hilda stood back, with an arm’s length between her and her mother, and tilted her head. “Although, I always knew you and Mark were perfect for each other. I told you that like a hundred times growing up.”
“You never said that,” Pam said, laughing.
“I didn’t? Well, I thought it a hundred times. I just figured that you’d be upset if I said that, because you guys were such good friends. You never seemed to see how gorgeous he was.”
“I’m gorgeous?” Mark said, laughing.
“You used to be, before you got old,” Marilyn shot over at him. And everyone in the kitchen laughed. Pam’s girls had always been able to tease him just as easily as his own family.
“Well, someone’s not getting breakfast this morning,” he said, eyeing Marilyn.
“Like you would ever not feed me. You cook better than anyone else in the state of Michigan, except possibly Griff,” Marilyn said with a truly affectionate smile. “And I’m going to give you a hug too, but first of all, I have to give my mother a hard time. It’s not every day in one’s life that one’s mother gets married, and she did it without me.” She put her hands on her hips. “And you did it without me too. And you’ve been like a dad to us all our lives.”
“It was a quick thing. We just...decided it was time. I mean, when you’ve been friends for more than a decade, and you suddenly realize that you’ve been missing out...”
“And you too, Mom. Mark has always been such a catch.”
“I know,” Pam said, turning her eyes on him and making him feel warm the whole way from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. There she was, holding his gaze again, and freezing him, making it impossible to move or to look away. How did she do that?
“Mother. What gives? Why didn’t you invite us to the wedding?”
“There really wasn’t much of a wedding,” Pam began.
Mark hated to leave, but he had to go get the extra food. Or people were going to be hungry.
They were deep in conversation and laughter by the time he got back, and were standing at the stove with three skillets going, one for sausage, one for bacon, and another one for eggs.
