Page 53 of The Kitchen Contract

Maddy presses her lips together with a little squeal and loops her arm through mine, tugging me away from Alex. “Let’s go find Annie and tell her the good news.”

I glance over my shoulder at Alex who is trailing casually behind with his eyebrow cocked in an I-told-you-so position. And it does seem as though my worries were for naught if Maddy’s enthusiasm is as genuine as it seems.

Annie sees us coming and leans forward with narrowed eyes, though she doesn’t try to rise from the kitchen chair she’s settled in. “What’s going on?”

“Alex and Nora are together!” Maddy tells her, bouncing on her toes.

Annie looks past us to Alex. “Is this true?”

He confirms with a grin, and Annie hauls herself to her feet, one hand supporting her huge belly. The other hand goes around my neck, and she pulls me in for a hug against her side. “This is great news! We’ve had our fingers crossed for months now.”

I pull back and look at her. “Wait a second. You set us up?” I feel Alex’s hand on the small of my back as he joins our little circle. I set the cake on the table so I have both hands free to prop on my hips.

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that,” Annie says, looking a little sheepish. “I only suggested you two work together because it made sense at the time, but I have to admit that after the fact, I did hope that y’all would hit it off.”

Alex turns to Maddy. “And you were okay with that?”

“Um, yeah.” She says this like he’s being intentionally obtuse. “We wanted you to find a nice girl, and now it looks like you have!”

I attempt a glare at the two women, but it melts almost immediately. It’s hard for me to be upset with their meddling when it brought me and Alex together, both personally and professionally. I have a lot to be thankful for right now, and most of it is wrapped up in our arrangement.

I glance up at Alex with a smirk. “I guess it turned out alright.”

He wraps an arm around my waist and tugs me into his side with an answering grin. “I suppose so.”

Annie and Maddy are both staring with expressions that remind me of heart-eye emojis.

“Do you need help with anything?” I ask, changing the subject before things get awkward.

“No, I think I have everything under control,” Maddy says, snapping back into mom mode. “I just need to put the candles on the cake and carry a few things outside. Olivia asked for a ‘pink outside fiesta’, which means we’re having tacos on pink plates in the backyard.”

“Sounds like a good time,” Alex says.

Just then, Olivia pokes her head in the back door and spots him. Her eyes light up. “Uncle Alex! Come play with us! Dad and Uncle Grant set up a badminton net for us, and we need one more person.”

Alex glances down at me, an unspoken question in the tilt of his brows.

“Go on. I’ll be out in a minute,” I tell him. “Go play with your niece.”

He grins and presses a quick kiss to the top of my head. “Try not to miss me too much.”

“I’ll do my best,” I say with an amused smile.

“Okay, we probably only have a few minutes before he comes back,” Maddy says as soon as the door closes. “Annie, let’s tell her the plan.”

“The plan?” I ask, confused and maybe a little nervous.

“Right,” Annie says. “Alex’s birthday is next week, and we want to throw him a surprise party.”

“It’s next week? I didn’t even know.” My cheeks flush at how that must sound, seeing as how I’m his girlfriend now. “I mean, we haven’t talked about birthdays. I’m sure he doesn’t know when mine is either.”

“Well, make sure you tell him so he can pamper you appropriately,” Maddy says. “But in the meantime, let’s get our ducks in a row for Friday. We figured the best way to really surprise him would be to do it at his house. If we ask him to go somewhere else, he’ll figure it out. But if he comes home from work to a houseful of people, he’ll be totally surprised.”

I’m following her so far. “What do you need from me?”

“I’m so glad you asked. He’s going to want to go out on his birthday, do something fun or special, and we need you to talk him out of it and get him to go home after work like usual.”

“Okay…” My mind is working hard, trying to figure out how to accomplish it. “I think I can do that.”

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