Page 4 of Nothing to This

“Of course not.”

Speaking fast and matching his pace was a necessity.Talking before thinking things through was typical of them.Stubbornness, and their back-and-forth banter, had drawn them to each other in the first place.Old habits and all that.

They brought out a need in each other to get in the last word, to match each other quip for quip.Mature?No.It was what it was.Honestly, she hated how exciting baiting him could be and how easily she confused their repartee for having fun.

She was supposed to be mad at him, or at least demanding answers.Her heart rate kicking up was nothing more than an increase in adrenaline caused by him aggravating her.That was the reason.The only reason.

A little hand grabbed her knee and pulled at her until a tiny body squeezed around her leg.

“Mommy, I want to see,” Sky said, blinking upward.

“You’re not supposed to—”

Sky squealed.“Daddy!”

JD bent to scoop her up.“Hello, Sproutette.”

Putting her arms around him, Sky glowed, then grabbed his face in both hands.“Did you be missing me?”

“Of course I missed you, sweetheart.You’re my angel.”

JD kissed the end of their daughter’s nose.Though she rolled her eyes and folded her arms, it was kind of cute to see them together.These interactions weren’t something she usually got to witness.

“Did you come to see my bedroom?”Sky asked but didn’t wait for the inconvenience of an answer.“Mommy, Daddy wants to see my bedroom.”

The kids were his ticket to getting inside.Not that she was keeping him outside exactly, but he’d tickled her suspicion by avoiding the question of why he’d shown up.

“No, he doesn’t,” she said and kept going before JD could correct her.“Daddy wants you to sit at the table with Kye to finish your dinner.”Sky blinked at her father, giving her mother the chance to glare at him.“Because Daddy would never dare undermine Mommy’s authority on something as important as feeding you.”

His smirk stayed on their daughter, though it was for her, not the little one.“What are you having for dinner, Sproutette?”

“Pasta,” Sky said, screwing up her face.

He gasped.“Oh, wow!Pasta?I love pasta!”he said with more enthusiasm than he would if talking to an adult.

The act worked like a dream with Sky.

The grumpy little one quickly reverted to her bubbling joy.“You want some of mines?”

Her kids might think they were smart, but watching out for their tricks was her full-time job.

Still, Sky had seen her father; it would be unfair to keep him from Kye.Sky also wouldn’t give her parents peace, meaning she wouldn’t get to the bottom of why JD showed up until they appeased their daughter.

Inevitable was inevitable.

“Uh, no,” she said, entering the apartment, leaving the door open for JD to bring Sky inside.“If Daddy wants to eat with you, Mommy will fix him his own plate.You have to clear yours.”

The scrape of her son’s chair legs on the slate floor came before the front door even had a chance to close.

“Daddy!”Kye called out.

In a few weeks, their babies would turn five.Their little bodies needed the help of booster seats to reach the table, but both were professionals at climbing up and down either to get up or to get away.

Returning to her place on the other side of the kitchen island, she hung up the towel but faltered.The vision of JD standing at the foot of the dining table, holding both children, sent her mind back to the hospital on the day the kids were born.That was probably the last time she’d seen him holding them both together.Babies then, both considerably smaller, JD didn’t make it look any more difficult now than it had all those years ago.

Shaking off the moment of sentiment, she cleared her throat.What had she been doing before he showed up to disrupt their lives?

“You had to come at dinnertime when I’m trying to get them both to eat, didn’t you?”