Page 85 of Inside Out
“That does sound heavenly.”
“While you’re here, you can update your resume and look at employment opportunities. There are tons of hospitals around here.”
“One thing at a time. I’ll inform HR that I’m taking my vacation. They can just deal with it like they expect me to every damn day.”
“That’s my mama,” I’d said proudly.
Rome had taken the entire week off to prep for the feast he planned for our guests which included Camilla’s parents. Rather than making Marc and Camilla split time between the families, Rome thought it would be a nice gesture to invite everyone. I watched in shock as my normally messy man turned into a super-neat freak when we started cleaning for company. Apparently, that meant cleaning the closets because it’s where I found him when I got home from school, not in the kitchen like I expected.
“Is there something you want to tell me?” I asked. Dolly got up from her blanket nest by the door and came to welcome me home. “Hi, baby girl. Miss me?” I cradled her against my chest and she licked my chin. “I missed you too, but I’m not licking your chin.”
“How about mine?” Rome asked, peeking around the closet door. “Hi, love.”
“Hi. What’s going on?” I asked, gesturing to the mess he’d made inside the closet.
“I’m getting ready.”
“To go back in the closet? Are you making a nest in there?”
“No,” Rome replied, rolling his eyes. “It’s part of my annual Thanksgiving cleaning ritual.”
“I don’t think Mr. and Mrs. Álvarez are planning to look in there,” I said when he disappeared out of sight. I put Dolly back down then made myself comfortable on our bed. I’d helped clean the house too, of course, but I was drawing the line at cleaning the closets when we could be making love. This was a side to him I hadn’t seen, and I found it completely adorable. “So, are you making room for new stuff?”
“No,” he said from somewhere inside his walk-in closet. I saw a shirt sail through the air and land in the pile in the center of the closet floor. That was the Rome I knew and loved. I pulled my polo over my head and dropped it beside the bed then reached for my belt. “I want everything to be tidy and organized for the New Year.”
“So you can mess it up again in a week?” I asked, shoving my pants and underwear to my thighs.
“You think you know me so well, don’t you? I’ll have you know—” Rome’s words died when he saw me working my dick up and down. He blinked a few times then licked his lips.
“You’ll have me know what?” I asked him.
I heard a crash which meant Rome dropped whatever he held in his hands. Then he practically tripped over his own two feet when he cleared the doorway. “Close your eyes, Dolly. Dad and Daddy are about to kick off this holiday right.”
Sometime later, I roused from my post-coital nap. “Do I smell burnt toast or am I having a stroke?” I asked.
Rome snorted from somewhere in the room. I sat up and saw that he was back in the closet again, and the pile of stuff in the center had tripled. He poked his head around the door and grinned. “It’s burnt toast. My handsome guy came home and distracted me, so I forgot I was toasting bread for my homemade stuffing. Luckily, I bought extra bread, but that means we’ll have to use store-bought croutons instead of my homemade ones.”
“Oh, the horror,” I gasped then yawned. “Where are you getting your energy?”
“Is that a crack about my age?”
“You know it’s not.”
“I’m just happy,” he said. “I’m going to need your help in the kitchen later. We have plenty of casseroles to prep.”
“Where are you going to bake all these casseroles? We only have the one oven, and it will be stuffed with that forty-pound turkey you got from the butcher.”
“It’s only twenty-two pounds,” he said, ducking back inside the closet. “Lily and her husband are going to her in-laws, so she said I could borrow her oven tomorrow.”
“We’re going to need a double oven,” I told him. “My mom has one, and it made the holidays so much easier for her. Or,” I said after consideration, “you could ask the guests to bring a casserole dish with them. That’s what most families do.”
“Next year,” he said, but I knew he was dismissing the idea. My grandmother was the same way. She never let anyone bring any food or clean up afterward. I’d have to work on Rome because that was just insane, especially as our lives expanded to include more people.
The feast we prepared would impress Scott Conant. I missed having my mother there so much, but we FaceTimed her so she could meet Camilla’s parents and feel like she was there with us.
“I have big news,” she said once we all finished the initial greetings.
“I’m coming to Ohio next week and won’t be leaving until after the New Year,ifI leave at all.