Page 43 of Mia Amata

“Coffee’s fresh,” I said as they joined us on the deck. I saw the look of surprise when they saw Jacob sitting there with me. “Help yourself. There are some fresh baked cinnamon rolls on the counter too.”

“Count me in!” Josh exclaimed as he went into the house. When he passed Jacob, he gave him a fist bump, which I raised an eyebrow to.

Randy laughed. The exchange between brothers and my raised eyebrow not escaping her. “I had better go in and make sure he doesn’t eat the whole batch!” She followed him in, and they soon came back out with a roll and a cup of coffee each. They sat down on the deck, and we chatted easily while they ate, and we all drank our coffee. Josh went back inside for a second roll, bringing the coffee pot out to refill our cups.

He sat down, “These rolls are fantastic!”

“Thanks. I enjoy baking. Cinnamon rolls sounded really good today.”

Randy added, “I’m surprised you found the time to make them,” she smiled as Josh almost choked on his roll. She added hurriedly, “You will have to give me the recipe! They are fantastic.”

“I can’t, I don’t have a recipe. I just threw them together.”

Randy looked at me in surprise. “Really?” I nodded. “I wish I could do that. I mean after I make something enough times I can usually get to where I don’t need the recipe, but I’m not good at throwing ingredients together to make something this good.”

“I’ve always been able to make things without a recipe. If it is a new item, I may look it up to see what is in it, but then I never follow the recipe. I don’t know, it just seems to come easily to me.” We sat there for a while longer discussing our plans for the weekend. I invited them to come back that night, stating that I would cook supper for all of us, then maybe we could watch a movie, which they accepted. We talked about what sounded good, all three of them stated together Italian, so I said I would make lasagna.

“Well,” Josh said, “we had better get our day going, have some errands to run and things to do around the house today.”

We all stood up, taking our dishes into the house, Lady and Lucky following us in. Randy offered to wash the dishes, but I refused. I wrapped up a few cinnamon rolls for them which Josh was more than happy to take home with him. They left, but not before I saw Josh give Jacob another fist bump. I was washing up the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen. Jacob took my trash out for me. I checked the cupboards to make sure I had everything I needed to make lasagna with garlic bread for supper.

Jacob and I sat down on the couch together when I finished the dishes. “What was all that about?” I asked him.

He feigned innocence, “All what?”

“All the fist bumps with Josh,” I said.

“It’s a guy thing. He knows I spent the night here last night; it was his way of saying way to go.”

“But nothing happened!”

“I know, I’ll make sure he knows that too. It just didn’t seem an appropriate time to bring up the fact we haven’t had sex yet.”

“Yet?” I looked at him. I felt uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going.

“If it bothers you that much, I can call him right now. I don’t want to do anything to hurt you.”

He looked so distressed at the thought I was upset with him; I couldn’t figure out what was happening there. “Jacob,” I started, but he didn’t let me finish.

He sighed, “Honestly, I know he will bring it up later, and I will tell him that we fell asleep watching movies and that nothing happened. I would never lie about that just to make myself look like I…”

“Got lucky?” I asked.

“Exactly. Josh knows that too. We are super close; we share a lot with each other. He is honestly probably just happy for me.”

“Happy why?”

“Because I finally found someone.” He got up and walked away, heading to the bathroom, before I could respond to that. I sat there stunned. Jacob kept saying things like that. I had no idea what he thought was happening here and how to handle whatever this was. Jacob walked out, heading to the front door. “I should run home. I need to shower and run to the store for a few things for the week. Can I pick up anything for you?”

“No, I have everything I need here. Unless you all want something besides tea, water, or milk to drink. I don’t have any alcohol around here.”

We walked to the door. “We don’t need alcohol, whatever you have here will be fine. I’ll grab some soda, just in case.” When we reached the front door, he turned toward me. “Would it be OK if I come back early? Before Josh and Randy get here? I think we should talk.”

I hesitated, then nodded. “I may be busy with supper.”

“That won’t bother me, we can talk while you cook.”

“You can come back whatever time you’d like. I’ll be here doing some things around the house and cooking.”

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