Page 30 of Lakeside Little
“As they should be,” he said, rubbing his cheek into my palm. “Plus, I don’t want your hands to get all hard and horrible again. And these ones smell like—” he inhaled. I couldn’t place the fragrance. “Flowers.”
“Yeah, you think?”
“And vanilla.”
“I don’t smell either of those things. Just smells like cream.”
He applied his weight on top of me. I could’ve easily lifted him if I’d wanted, he was a human-sized weighted blanket. And I embraced it, every little bit of him laid on me was squeezing all the negative thoughts right out of me. “You need to open up your imagination and then you’ll be able to smell them,” he said, wiggling his entire body on mine as if he was burrowing.
We actually fell asleep in that position. I never napped, so it was unusual for me, and yet for the second time since I was around Jack, I found myself waking in the dark to someone banging around.
Shooting upright, I caught a solitary light above the oven. Jack was giggling away as he whisked something in a metalbowl. He turned to see me roll my head a little, hoping the nap on the floor hadn’t done permanent damage to my back or neck.
“Did I wake you?” he asked.
“I—” My words interrupted by a large yawn. “What are you doing?”
On the counter, three of his dolls were in a seated position with his phone camera propped up by a mug. “Nory invited her friends over and I saw a video of someone making these tiny pancakes, and they made tiny pancake cereal. It gave me an idea.”
“You’re making pancake batter?” I asked, approaching him to see the mess hiding in the dark parts of the kitchen. I took a finger and wiped some of the floor. “Ok, well, I hope you got more flour in there than you did out here.”
“I didn’t want to wake you,” he said. “You looked so cute. I took a picture.” He placed the bowl on the counter and grabbed his phone. “Ok, so these are for my eyes only. But look at how cute you are.” He flicked through the burst of pictures he’d taken, almost like a motion picture with the way he flicked through them.
“I like those best,” I said, seeing the pictures he’d taken of us together. “But my mouth is wide open. I look like I’m about to start snoring.”
He giggled. “You kinda did.”
“I don’t snore.”
“Just a little.”
“No way, I’ve never snored.”
Jack continued to giggle as he pulled up a video, and he was right. I snored. It was quiet, but as plain as day, I was snoring. I stared at it and nodded slowly. “I’ve never snored before then,” I said, and was quickly shown another two videos, those both shot in complete darkness where my snoring wasakin to a car starting up, and in the background, Jack’s soft chuckles were heard.
“It’s ok,” he said. “I really don’t mind it. I sleep right through usually, or I will wiggle against you a little bit and you go quiet again.”
I dotted the flour from my finger on his nose. “I think that’s a sign we’re comfortable together.”
“You’re not mad I took videos and pictures, are you Daddy?”
“Are you kidding? I think that’s hella cute, and I know you’re all about taking pictures of your dolls and such, I might’ve been a bit offended if I wasn’t in your photo album.”
“Well, you kinda already were in it,” he said. “From that first day.”
“Right. I—” A smirk burned away at my cheeks, so warm on my skin. “I forgot about that.”
He pressed the tip of his nose to mine. “Did you really just come over that day for me to take a picture of you? Or did you just see me and think,damn, he’s so cute, I want a piece of that.”
I kissed him. “Can it be both?”
“Both what?”
“Both that I wanted a picture, people needed to know I was out here relaxing and not going crazy, and because I saw you, alone, and thought it would be nice to know my neighbor.”
“And I’m glad you did, because if I’d seen you first, I might’ve been a little intimidated with your whole fishing and fish grilling thing you have going on,” he said, poking his tongue out a little. “Straight men are high-key intimidating, so I might’ve assumed.”
“It’s a good job I came over as well, otherwise your dolls wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep, and I know Nory would’ve chewed your ear off with her nagging.”
