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“Oh.”
“I eat linner all the time on the weekends, especially when I’m too hungry to wait for dinner. And you know what? I think I’m too hungry to wait for dinner today. What about you?”
Jacob nodded.
“It’s settled, then.” Paige looked over at David with an exaggerated, skeptical expression. “Wait. Have you ever made linner before?”
David wasn’t quite sure what Paige was up to, but he was pretty good at reading cues. “Um, actually, no, I’ve never made … linner.”
“Well, why don’t I make it, then?”
“You want to make us … linner?”
“Sure,” she answered, glancing from one to the other. “I mean, if that’s okay.”
David leaned down and whispered in Jacob’s ear, who whispered something in return. Then, to Paige’s amusement, the back-and-forth continued for another thirty seconds before David straightened up and announced, “We need to know what you’re actually going to make, before we decide.”
Paige shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea. It’ll depend on what I find in the fridge,” she answered, even though she was pretty familiar with the contents of the fridge, having been foraging in it for the past few days.
Another back-and-forth whisper-session ensued, although this one was much shorter.
“You can make us linner,” David said, as if having reached a difficult decision. Then, in an aside obviously meant for Paige to overhear, he told Jacob, “If it’s not good, we’ll go to McDonald’s.”
Jacob quickly shook his head, clearly not open to that.
“No?” David was utterly shocked at the response. Like most kids, Jacob loved McDonald’s and never turned it down, especially since getting to go was a bit of a treat for him. “Okay, well, then …” David trailed off and met Paige’s eyes. “Let’s hope linner is good.”
“It’s going to be great, not good,” she corrected him with a reassuring smile. “Now, why don’t you two go and let me work my magic?”
“You sure? You don’t want any help?”
“Nope.”
David decided to take her at her word and whispered to Jacob again, this time quiet enough so that Paige couldn’t hear. When he nodded, David lifted the boy off the counter and set him on the floor, then watched as he left the kitchen.
David pulled her forward for a kiss. “Please … whatever you make, don’t use any Thanksgiving leftovers.”
She chuckled softly since that’s all they’d eaten since Friday night. “I won’t. I have something else in mind.”
“Is it macaroni and cheese?”
The pointed question had her tilting her head. “Should it be?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “It’s his favorite.”
“I can work with that, but I need to know if you’re talking about real macaroni and cheese, or that shit in a box?”
“Definitely not that shit in a box. He’s a total snob when it comes to macaroni and cheese.”
“Hmm, I wonder where he gets his snobbery from?” Paige mused innocently.
“I have no idea.”
He gave her another kiss, this time on her forehead, and when he pulled back, he told her, “I’m going to give Jacob a bath. Is forty-five minutes enough time for you to make … linner?”
“It’s perfect.”
Chapter 45
