Page 205 of The Bonus

“I’ve made you some brownies,” Mark says. “Hope you’re hungry.” He presents a tray of brownies and they both take one.

“Thank you,” Dominic mumbles.

“I had to work today, so Mark has been helping cook us dinner.” I smile as I watch them down the brownies. I really need to learn how to cook; it kills me that I can’t cook for them myself.

“Do you guys like hamburgers?” Mark asks.

They both nod.

“Mark makes the best hamburgers in all of New York,” I reply.

Lucia’s eyes widen. “You do?”

“Just you wait until you taste them.” He wiggles his eyebrows and they both smile.

“Let’s go upstairs, I’ve got something to show you. Bring your brownies.”

They follow me upstairs and down the hall, and I take them to the bedroom next to mine. “What do you think?” I present the bedroom; it’s pale blue and has a fireplace and an ornate ceiling. It has two single beds with ottomans at the end of each, one has a pale blue quilt and the other has a pale pink quilt. Each bed has a stuffed animal sitting up on the pillow. There’s a rocking chair in the corner and a toybox, no toys in it yet though.

“I had some new beds delivered for you guys.”

They both look around the bedroom.

“I thought…” I hesitate. “I thought you might want to stay over one time and I know you like to be together, so…”

“Can we stay over tonight?” Lucia asks excitedly.

“Not tonight, but maybe…if Dom wants to…maybe Saturday night?”

Dom looks around the room as if assessing every detail.

“I could sleep on the floor in here if… I mean, if you wanted to have a campout,” I offer hopefully.

Dom gives me a half-hearted smile and nods. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Excitement runs through me.

Lucia goes to the box in the corner that the stuffed animals came in and reads the address written on it.

“What’s Ferr…ar…?”

“Ferrara. That’s my surname.”

They both stare at me blankly.

“Look.” I scroll through my phone, bring up a photo of my office, and show them the sign written across the building.

F E R R A R A

“See, that’s my surname. This is my work.”

“Oh.”

“Woooah, that looks cool,” Lucia says.

“Do you like it, Dominic?”

He studies the picture and nods.

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