Page 14 of The Dragon’s Accidental Manny

I never said it out loud, just in my head as I drove back from a grocery run with a trunk full of meat. Price had offhandedly mentioned that the kids’ pediatrician had put them on a high-protein diet, and it wasn’t my place to question that. I wasn’t a doctor or a nutritionist.

As I sat at a red light and made a list of the chores I had to finish before the kids came home, I thought about my name on a contract and a bathroom just for me where my toothbrush had a place. Having slept in my car, being in a house with running water, electricity, a fridge, and a washing machine was a luxury. But it was the people under the same roof that made it a refuge from the world outside.

At the end of the first week, I’d unpacked my second suitcase. It’d stood in a corner of my room for seven days because I didn’t trust this run of luck. That fear had me in its grip, and it took that long before I said to heck with it and put my things in the closet. If fate was going to mess with me, one full suitcase wasn’t going to sway it one way or the other.

The days were more predictable now that I had a job. Price usually dropped the kids off on his way to the studio and left me the quiet of the house. I was spending the mornings making extra money which provided a nice nest egg. In the afternoons, the house filled with kids, noise, and more heat while we were all together in the evenings.

This was the best job I’d ever been fired into having.

And helping Bea with her new recorder was top of the list.

Not long after the licking incident, she sat opposite me, and we discussed the design that was going on the recorder. I asked questions, she responded, and I designed, then she told me what she wanted changed and made suggestions for improvements or additions. I didn’t tell her, “That won’t work,” or “This would look best,” but did as she asked and let her decide if she liked it. When she didn’t and asked why one aspect looked better than another, I explained, and she gave a nod which was her version of okay.

And when it was done, I ordered her new recorder, engraved with the design we’d created.

“We make a good team.” She didn’t look directly at me, and there were no hugs, which was more Jack’s style.

“We do.”

Awww. That was the thing about the people here and the house itself. They were warm in every sense of the word.

I’d mostly stopped paying attention to the heat in the way that you got used to traffic during the morning commute or a partner who snored. I slept in shorts and nothing else and would have gone to bed naked but for the kids, Jack especially, who might barge in before I got dressed in the morning.

Price’s burns worried me because did the man not have boundaries when it came to molten glass and extreme temperatures?

But it was the amount of meat the family consumed that confused me. A high-protein diet was one thing, but an almost all-protein menu that excluded fruits and vegetables wasn't healthy.

One evening when Price cooked dinner, which he did most nights, I poked at my almost raw steak.

“Is it too rare?” he asked.

“No, it’s fine.” I didn’t want him making a meal just for me. “Where I grew up, we cooked meat until it lay down, put its hands in the air, and surrendered, saying, ‘I’m done.’”

Bea sniggered before putting a hand in front of her mouth.

“We prefer our meat with personality.” Price waved at the meat on my plate. “Hi, steak. Did you enjoy being singed on both sides?” He wobbled his head and spoke in a gruff voice. “Why yes, I did. Loved it.”

Bea laughed again, and Isla and I joined in, but Jack leaned over my plate and put his face an inch above the steak.

“It can talk?”

Price tousled his son’s hair. “It’s just me being silly, little man.”

Watching him do funny voices for a steak and smoothing Jack’s hair was trouble. He was the one problem with my new existence. Not because he wasn’t a great boss, he was the absolute best. And it was more me than him that was the problem.

After the children went to bed, the house settled into a quiet calm. I looked forward to it, probably as a parent would. I enjoyed being with the kids, but the peace that reigned after they were asleep was the reward for braving the day’s mayhem.

Some nights Price returned to the studio, and on the ones he stayed home, we’d end up in the kitchen, drinking tea and chatting. We’d try to outdo one another with weird and outrageous customer requests when he’d tell me about a collector who wanted a piece with the sky the same shade of blue as the one when he visited the beach as a kid. It was the same one he’d been working on for a while.

I tried to one-up him by describing a client who had a vegan café and taxidermy business and wanted the same logo for both.

“That’s an impossible task.”

“What? No, it was a challenge, one I wasn’t going to ignore. I designed a stag’s head, but the antlers branched out and sprouted leaves.” I paused for dramatic effect. “Though the client said the antlers looked too alive and could I make them more dead.”

Price held up a hand and we high-fived, mimicking his son. “You’re amazing.”

Well, yes, that was true, but I blushed at the compliment. Him getting me flustered wasn’t surprising because I wanted to climb the man like a trellis. But he was my boss, not my buddy or my crush. I had to stay professional or I’d lose my job and access to the kids who I was halfway to loving.