Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
OLIVIA
“Uh, sweetie, the egg shells go outside the batter.”
AB stared into the large batter bowl with a scowl. “Well, shit.”
AB’s deadpan delivery followed by her mangled attempt to grab the shells out of the bowl had Olivia nearly peeing herself trying to contain her laughter. “Let’s ask your dad if you’re allowed to say that word.”
“I can,” AB said urgently. “I can say it one time a week at home. ’Cause I’m six now. I got the C-word last year.”
Olivia stared with wide eyes. “Which C-word?”
“The poop one!” AB said, giggling.
Olivia decided to distract her, hoping she wouldn’t ask about other C-words. “Let’s try the egg again.”
Nothing said fall to Olivia like pumpkin muffins, so she’d found a Luca-approved wheat-free recipe to make for their Friday afternoon activity.
AB stood on a step stool in her tiny unicorn apron.
Luca had finally delivered on his promise to find her a purple one, so Olivia wore a matching one beside her.
AB successfully cracked the second egg into the batter bowl.
“Great job. Let’s slop the pumpkin in now.”
AB grabbed the open can from Olivia with confusion. “How do you slop?”
“Two hands, and shake it!” Olivia said with a smile, leaning on the counter. “Slopping is an important part of the recipe.”
AB’s face lit up, and she shook the pumpkin can upside down from her stool. It plopped out all at once, a cloud of dust landing on Olivia’s face.
Nutmeg-y sweet dust lined her nostrils and she laughed, coughing from it.
“You look like a ghost.” AB laughed. “It’s on your nose.”
“Here, we can match.” She lightly sprinkled flour onto AB’s nose as she belly-laughed.
Luca walked in at that moment with armfuls of grocery bags. His arms flexed from the effort, the clinging long-sleeve Henley following every dip and muscle of his frame. He’d pushed the sleeves up to his elbows where his forearms flexed against the grocery bag straps.
She licked her lips at how cuddly, how hot every part of him looked.
His smile was warm as his eyes connected with hers, looking delighted at something.
“Psst. Go try it out,” Olivia said, nudging AB.
“Hey, Dad,” AB said too loudly. “Can I help you?”
Luca stopped short and looked at Olivia in surprise.
She shrugged as if to say, I don’t know either. They’d been talking about being helpers to people who they loved, like her dad or Pearl.
“Hey, kid. Can you get the bag that I left on the porch?” AB ran out to the porch.
“Is that your doing?” he said, looking skeptical.
“AB is a very sweet girl.” She shrugged, a secretive smile on her lips. “Big plans tonight?”
“It’s movie night,” AB answered for him, slamming the door behind her. “Wanna watch with me? We’re gonna eat candy.”
“Oh,” Olivia said, not wanting to intrude. “That’s okay. Thank you, though.”
“You don’t like watching movies with me?” AB looked genuinely hurt.
Oh, her heart.
“Oh, no, sweetie.” Olivia leaned down. “We can watch movies any time. You and your dad don’t get to spend a lot of time together, and I don’t want to get in the middle of that.”
AB looked around, as if thinking of a reason for her to stay. “But you said you liked The Little Mermaid.”
A smile tugged on Olivia’s lips. “I do. Is that one of your favorite movies?”
“Yeah,” AB said unconvincingly as Luca slowly shook his head noooo behind her.
“Well, we can watch your favorite movie, okay? It’s your movie night. Someday we’ll watch my favorite movie on movie night,” she said, accidentally committing herself to another one.
“Why don’t you go get your pj’s on, goob,” Luca said as he put things away in the fridge.
“I can show you my new crow pjs AP got me,” AB yelled as she ran up the stairs.
Luca said, “You should stay,” as Olivia said, “Is that okay?”
“Oh.” Luca nodded nervously. “Only if you want to. I’m sure you have plans.” He hefted two heavy jugs of water and set them in the corner.
Olivia laughed hard as she mixed the batter, and a snort crept through.
Yeah, plans with my vibrator, pretending to be that five gallon jug of water in your hands.
“I can move things around my bustling social schedule,” she said sarcastically.
“Plus, I lost track of time, and these muffins need a while to bake. But only if you’re sure. ”
She tossed the empty pumpkin can in the trash and licked pumpkin off of her finger.
Luca gulped as she met his eyes, looking lost in thought. “D-definitely.” He shook his head to clear it. “You should stay.”
Luca reached past her to put vitamins on a high shelf beside her. She tried to catch a whiff of his cologne. You know, like a serial killer probably. Something about this man’s scent flipped the on switch on a cave-woman mode she didn’t even know she had.
Add in the rolled-up sleeves and she was practically in heat.
He stopped beside her, watching her scoop batter into a muffin pan. “How’s the apron working out?”
She twirled, showing it off, spatula in hand. “Fabulously. Doesn’t it look great?” She said it lightly, but her laugh faded as she met his heated gaze. He nodded.
“Perfect,” he whispered, almost to himself.
There was an us-ness when he was close. That was what she called it in her head. A pretend time where they were a unit, a team.
“You have…” He brushed his own nose.
“Ah, yeah, the flour shot first.”
“May I?”
She stuck her face toward him, her eyes looking everywhere but at him.
But then his rough fingers swiped her nose. Gently along the ridge and across her cheek.
She couldn’t breathe and couldn’t look away from the stubble in front of her face, wanted to rub her face against it.
Thank god she heard thundering little feet running down the stairs or who knows what she would have done next.
“Got it,” he said finally and stepped back.
Thirty minutes later, AB sat between them on the couch. They all had heaping plates of pasta and junk food on their laps, watching Frozen for what was probably the ten-thousandth time if Luca silently mouthing the words as he watched was any indication.
She had trouble eating her pasta with all the butterflies in her stomach.
A group sing-along nearly broke the windows during “Let It Go,” right as AB’s sugar buzz kicked in. Luca had been game, wearing a blue tiara AB had insisted on as she and Olivia did their interpretive dances. They sipped from heated mugs of apple cider as AB belly-giggled at the silliest jokes.
AB insisted on stretching out on the edge of the couch, which meant Olivia had landed in the middle between them.
The house was chilly, and Luca had grabbed blankets that they’d spread over their legs as AB sat on the couch squirming in the way that kids did.
Her eyelids started to droop, though, as the sugar crash swooped down, and she leaned her little body against Olivia.
There was plenty of room for three people, but AB kept pressing her feet into the side of the couch arm and scooting Olivia closer to Luca, completely unknowingly.
Their arms brushed. “Sorry, I can move down to the ground,” she whispered to Luca.
“No, it’s fine,” Luca said, his tiara still glinting in the light from the TV.
Olivia bit her lip as she watched the movie, feeling the heat along their arms and thighs that were smashed together.
She leaned over to whisper. “You’re a really good dad.”
His eyebrows knitted together in genuine surprise. “Really?”
She bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Not every dad would take the third-best tiara.”
He realized it was still on his head and pulled it off quickly. “Shit, thanks.” He laughed. “You an expert in good dads?”
She huffed out a hollow laugh and stared back at the TV screen, shaking her head. “When you don’t have one, you are acutely aware of what you’re missing.”
“I’m sorry. You deserve to have a great dad,” he said quietly. He moved his fingers so they brushed the backs of hers, comforting her.
She had to close her eyes at the yearning for him that hit her stomach.
AB was dozing in and out of sleep and pressed her legs harder against the couch, shoving her into Luca.
“Sorry.” Olivia laughed.
“It’s fine.” He lifted his arm and wrapped it around the back of the couch.
Olivia had to close her eyes to steady herself as a wave of his cologne and scent washed over her.
She’d been a giant fucking liar the other night.
She hadn’t been cold.
She’d taken his shirt and wrapped it around herself to smell his scent and huff it like a safety blanket. She wished she could live in this moment forever, with the feeling of being wanted, being part of two special people’s lives.
She was tucked into his side, practically on his lap.
Armageddon could have been happening outside and nothing would have distracted her from how much she was trying not turn and cuddle against his chest.
As she shifted on the couch to cross her legs, he got up suddenly. “I’ll do the dishes. Can I get you anything?”
“Oh, let me help.”
“It’s fine,” he said, pointing to AB, who was nodding off on her shoulder. “Do you mind staying there?”
“Have a man cook me dinner and then do the dishes? Not at all,” she said with a smile.
An unexpected flash of white teeth as he laughed had her stomach somersaulting. She followed him with her gaze as he walked through the arched doorway, moving to the side a little so his shoulders wouldn’t brush the walls on his way through.
She sucked in a deep breath, trying to blow it out slowly, focusing on the movie.
You cannot be attracted to this child’s father while she is leaning on your shoulder snoring adorably.
AB’s mouth was starting to fall open. She was a cute little kid, and Olivia realized she’d rarely ever seen her still. AB had her father’s upturned nose, his eyebrows that tended to furrow. She looked so much younger when she was asleep. Olivia tucked the blanket tighter around her.
The movie continued, and Olivia felt her eyelids grow heavy as well, hearing the comforting clink of silverware in the sink and the sound of pans being scraped.