Page 86 of Pack Plus Three

“Why are you here? Surely you have work?” Nate was usually out of the house by seven a.m. most days.

“I took a small leave of absence. I’ve been glued to my desk for years, so it was sorely overdue,” he admitted. “It also means I can help you out while I am taking a break. I've gotta be on hand in case you need snacks.”

“I'm not going to lie. I'm very tempted to ask you for an impossible snack.”

“What qualifies as an impossible snack?”

“Something that was discontinued several years ago.”

“That does, indeed, sound like a challenge,” he said, his expression and tone utterly serious.

“For now, I suppose I will be content with the gummy candy I bought.”

“I did order extra snacks. I covered most of the potential bases,” Nate declared happily, pointing to the dresser to the left of me. Sure enough, there were several trays full of various snacks, chips, candy, and more.

“Did you buy a whole grocery store?” I laughed.

“No…” Nate smirked. “Just the entire snack aisle. “There's a little of everything. That way, you can fulfill any craving. There’s a variety of chocolate and sour candies, as well as salty snacks and chips. There are even fruit snacks and healthy things, like nuts and dried berries.”

My chest warmed. He had done that for me. Yes, it was probably just to ensure I didn’t get out of bed, but just the fact he had thought about it, then went out and procured everything, made me smile.

“That is probably only going to last a day or two,” I informed him. The later I got into my pregnancy, the more and more I found myself snacking. “Remember, technically, I'm eating for three now.”

“Well, it's a good thing I don’t have anything better to do than to feed you and keep you company. If I'm honest, I don't really know what to do with myself other than that right now because I haven’t taken a day off in so long.”

“Surely, you've had a vacation?”

Nate looked thoughtful for a moment before speaking. “I took two days off to accompany Jeremy to a game, but even then, I took my work laptop with me. There’s nothing more important to me than work. Or, at least, that's what I stupidly thought. It's time for me to start focusing on family.”

“So, what do you plan to do with me all day?” I asked, pausing when I realized just how filthy my words sounded. Nate pursed his lips as he tried to hold back his laugh. “You know what I mean!” I laughed, lightly slapping his arm.

“Well, I'm not exactly used to being a gentleman of leisure, but there are several options we can choose from. There are the classic video games that we can play from the nest, or I do believe we have several board games that I can bring in here.”

“Do you have Scrabble?” I asked excitedly.

Nate’s brow furrowed in thought. “I think we do somewhere.”

“You may be a fancy pants lawyer, but I'm pretty confident that I can kick your ass in Scrabble.”

“In that case, game on.”

“There's no way in hell that’s a word!” I exclaimed, looking at where Nate had laid down his letters to spell aliquot.

He smirked at me. “It’s a legal term.”

Grabbing my phone, I typed in the word. “Okay, I’ll concede. They really bashed some weird words into your brain in law school, didn’t they?”

“Oh yeah, I’m a wealth of useless knowledge now.”

We had intended to spend an hour or two playing board games and somehow got absorbed into a cutthroat tournament of Scrabble. It had been rather eye opening. It was nice to see Nate so relaxed. He lounged across the nest on his side, looking at the Scrabble board between us.

“I think we need to stop and get some food that's slightly better than just fruit snacks. If Jeremy finds out I haven't fed you properly, he’s going to murder me.”

I sighed. “I suppose I would rather you didn’t die. Then again, I think you're choosing now to end this game because you are in the middle of losing.”

Nate cocked an eyebrow at me. “Who said we needed to stop the game?” He handed me his phone. “There are at least six delivery apps on that phone. Pick one and choose something to eat, and I'll order takeout—get whatever sounds good to you. That way, I can continue kicking your butt at Scrabble.”

“Those are fighting words.” I laughed, taking the phone from him and opening the first takeout app I saw. “There's a dessert place not far from here that delivers—that looks amazing.”

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