Page 36 of Suddenly Entwined

“There was a tea spill. Is that okay?”

“It’s only a shirt.” I shrug.

But my brain is already remembering what her creamy, bare breasts looked like in her place last night, and knowing all of that is pressed up against my clothing makes me turn away to hide my arousal.

“Here’s your phone,” I say, when I’ve composed myself.

I want to bring up that text I saw, but it’s not the right time. She isn’t feeling well. And what if she thinks I was purposely snooping? It wasn’t my intention.

“Thanks. Yours is charging,” she tips her head to my end table. “I’m gonna head out.”

Caro wobbles, steadying herself by grabbing onto my headboard.

“Nope. Absolutely not,” I say, striding over to take her elbow.

“I’m fine.”

“You are not fine. You have a fever, you’re dizzy, and you spent the day taking care of my sick children. Now let me take care of you.”

Her eyes soften.

“And who takes care of you when you’re sick? Hmm?”

I mull that over for a moment while I watch my sleeping kids, their bellies rising and falling beneath the duvet. That answer is simple. Nobody.

“I’m sort of used to powering through on my own, you know?”

There’s an expression that crosses her face that makes me think she does know what that’s like.

“Stay for supper?”

She yawns, stretching her arms up in a way that makes me imagine grabbing the hem of that t-shirt and slipping it right over her head. Or brushing that hair off her fevered forehead and finding out how she takes her tea.

“There better be soup.”

“You think this is my first rodeo with sick kids? I picked up chicken noodle. C’mon,” I tell her, leading her out of my bedroom and shutting the door softly behind us.

***

The girls wake up mere minutes after we leave the room, so by the time they pad into the kitchen looking for Caro,the soup is bubbling in a saucepan on the stove. Now Carolina is sitting at my kitchen table in my damn t-shirt, slurping the last of her broth from the bowl. She’s book ended by each of my daughters who are fishing the noodles out of the soup, ignoring anything that remotely resembles a vegetable.

“Daddy, we forgot to do our highs and lows.”

“So we did,” I say, smiling.

Caro wipes the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “What’s high and lows?”

“It’s something our mom used to do,” Natalie says.

I watch Caro rest her cheek in her palm. “That sounds really special.” She catches me watching her. “Should I go?” She mouths.

I frown, shaking my head. That’s the last thing I want.

“You start then, Natalie,” I tell her.

“My low is feeling so sick.” She gives a pathetic little cough into her elbow. “But my high was getting to watch a movie in your bed.”

I nod, pointing a finger at Lou next. Louisa’s chair has migrated so close to Carolina’s throughout the meal that she’s practically in her lap.

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