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“And it’s telling me that we need to make sure all of your future birthday parties are better,” he added. “No more of you being ignored.”
Emma nodded with a smile on her face.
“D-don’t we have dinner to cook?”
“We can’t be too hard on her. She’ll explode.” Emma laughed. “Now, time to go light the grill.”
“Did your store run go well?” I asked Levi as Emma went to the back door.
“I think I got her to like me. All I did was say the things I liked about you.”
“And you managed to do that the whole time you were gone?”
“Absolutely. It wasn’t that hard.” His lips pressed to my temple before he went to follow her, and I had to take a second to process before I did the same.
“You’ll have to turn the gas on,” I said as I got outside and saw Emma staring at the grill like it was a command center for a spacecraft.
“Got it,” she said after turning the knob on the top of the gas can, then turned the burners on. “Now, how do you light this thing?”
“You press the button on the side.”
She fumbled with it for a good minute. At that point, I knew we were headed for disaster.
“The gas has been on for a bit, maybe we should?—”
“There it is!” she called, but the fire took off with too much gas. I recoiled and didn’t realize Levi had jumped in front of me until I saw the wall of his back.
“How about you make the patties?” he offered. “I’ll cook the burgers.”
“Since when do they light up like that?”
“It happens when the gas is on for too long,” I said with a wince. “Thankfully, it was clean, or we’d have a fire.Again.”
“Again?” Levi asked.
“Emma set my kitchen on fire once.”
“It was an accident!” she defended. “I didn’t know grease started fires. And I put it out.”
“With the rag I gave you.”
“Come on. You’re making me look like an idiot in front of your husband! Aren’t there any good memories you have?”
“I laughed my ass off while it happened.”
“That’s not helpful,” she grumbled. “But since I start fires, I’ll let Levi grill. But I’m still flavoring everything.”
“And I’ll help,” I said.
“I can make patties!” Emma nearly screeched.
“Yes, but I’m here for moral support. And monitoring.”
“So rude,” she said as we walked into the kitchen. She grabbed the hamburger meat.
“What’s this secret ingredient?”
“It’s just onion soup mix,” she said. “You don’t think I made a bad impression, do you?”