Page 15 of Smitten with the Single Dad

“Well come in my room.”

Jake grumbled, but Wyatt, still pretending to be asleep—because he’d really rather actually still be asleep—kept his eyes closed and didn’t move. Jake entered his younger brother’s bedroom a moment later.

“Why is Dad on my floor?” Griffon asked again.

“I don’t know,” Jake repeated.

“Do you think he had a bad dream?”

“Maybe.”

“I didn’t think adults had bad dreams.”

“We do,” Wyatt murmured, hugging his son’s spare Spiderman pillow.

“You’re awake,” Griffon announced.

“Hard to stay asleep when you nuggets are yelling at each other across the hallway.”

“Why are you on my floor?”

“Someone else is borrowing my room.”

“Who?”

Rather than answer Griffon’s question right away, Wyatt peeled himselfoff the floor and climbed into his son’s tiny twin bed beneath his Spiderman comforter. “Move over, Nugget.”

“Dad, you’re too big.”

“No, you just have too many toys on your bed.”

Griffon grumbled but moved over. Then Jake took the half-foot of space on the edge of the bed and climbed his eight-year-old frame onto the mattress as well. Now they really were squished.

But he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Despite his boys being rough-and-tumble zombie-loving hooligans, they were also incredibly loving, silly, and wonderful. He wouldn’t get too many more mornings like this, so he lapped them up.

Sooner than he wanted to think about, they’d be sweaty, smelly, hairy teenagers who thought more about girls and videos games than their dear old dad. So, for now, he was going to savor every last moment of their childhood as he could.

Besides, the morning wastheirtime.

He worked all day in the kitchen, starting at around ten in the morning during the summer, and going until eleven at night or later. Which meant the morning was when he got in as much quality time with his kids as he could.

“Who is in your room, Dad?” Griffon probed again.

“Last night something happened down at the restaurant and a person needed help. She needed a safe place to stay the night. So I offered for her to stay here.”

“Why didn’t you sleep in the study or on the couch though?” Jake asked, ever the methodical, practical one. Wyatt was surprised his eldest son hadn’t brought a book with him. Jake almost always had his nose buried in a book.

“Because I forgot that the futon mattress in the study needs to be replaced and is currently just the frame with no mattress. And I’ve never liked sleeping on the couch. I’m too tall.”

“Why’d you choose my floor over Jake’s floor?” Griffon asked.

“Because I stood between your two open doors last night and Jake wassnoring. You weren’t.” He elbowed Jake who just rolled his blue-hazel eyes, the same shade as Wyatt’s. Wyatt snorted. “What time is it anyway?”

Jake checked his kids’ Fitbit. “It’s seven thirty.”

Wyatt groaned. It wasn’tthatearly, he supposed. It felt early after the night he’d had though.

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