Page 42 of Scoring Chance

“Uncle Des!” Lena blushes, dead from the embarrassment of a single question.

“Four months,” Matthias says, cool as a cucumber, one that he probably grows in his alleged garden. “Lena’s a wonderful young woman.”

“She is,” I say, a hint of a threat laced in my voice. I doubt anyone under sixty calls their girlfriend a wonderful young woman.

“We need to get to school. Goodbye, Uncle Des. Dad.” Lena waves at Tanner, then a big wave to her siblings. She grabs her backpack.

“Uncle Des, a pleasure meeting you!” Matthias gives me a salute. I reciprocate with another steely nod.

“I don’t like him,” I say as I watch them get into his car.

“You don’t?” Tanner watches with me. “Matthias is a great kid. An A-student, runs a gardening club at school, always polite.”

“I know. He’s too perfect. No teenage boy is that good. He’s every parents’ wet dream, but wet dreams aren’t real.”

“What’s a wet dream?” Lulu asks. Tanner and I trade looks. Davy looks down at the table, his cheeks glowing bright red. I guess he and Tanner had that talk already.

“Sorry,” I tell Tanner. “At least it wasn’t a curse word.”

I get a feeling I can’t shake, though. I’ve been around enough sleazy guys, and I was a quasi-asshole when I was his age, so I know the type.

“He was putting on an act. No teenager sounds that polished. And the sweater vest? That’s just overkill. I have a weird feeling, Tanner.”

I start to make an omelet for him, cracking the eggs and putting them on the sizzling skillet. I look up, and Tanner’s smiling at me.

“What?”

“You don’t like your daughter’s boyfriend. You are such a dad.”

Eventually, all the Chances eat their omelets and give me rave reviews. The kids scatter like caffeinated squirrels to different parts of the house to enjoy their last minutes before leaving for school. And then the house is quiet.

I start cleaning up—without being asked, which I hoped would earn me some kind of gold star. Tanner joins me at the sink, bumping my shoulder with his as we scrub plates side-by-side. It’s so comfortable I could spend the next fifty years here.

“I was gonna let you sleep,” I say. “Didn’t expect the breakfast brigade to be waiting.”

“They always are.”

“Well, next time maybe I’ll set an alarm and stockpile waffles.”

Tanner smiles to himself, the gorgeous creases of his cheeks and crinkles around his eyes making him look ten times more handsome. “I can’t believe you cooked.”

We stand there in companionable silence, the hum of the dishwasher starting up behind us. I look over at him, at the way the morning light softens the lines of his face, at the ease with which he existed in this chaos.

“You do this every morning?”

“Pretty much.”

“And then lunch. And dinner. And bedtime. And grocery runs. And broken crayons. And princess shoes.”

“And lost library books,” he adds with a groan.

I exhale. “Jesus.”

“It’s a lot. But you get used to it.”

I shake my head. “You don’t get enough credit.”

“I don’t do it for credit.”