Page 62 of Clean Sweep
Yet, I didn’t want to.
The quiet of my house would be vast tonight indeed.
“My place,” I said firmly. “If you swing by the coffee shop, I’ll pick up my car on the way back.”
He shoved the truck into drive.
“WHERE ARE YOUR BOYS?”Tanner said as he stacked wood into my fireplace.
“With Ethan. Landon and Starla have been busy with finals and some other things at work, he said. They’re going to come down for New Years. Nicholas flies out in a few days. Max flew in yesterday.”
“Do you miss them?”
I shrugged. “Yes. No. I don’t know. I miss the full, bustling Christmas’s we used to have. Miss picking out Santa’s presents and stuffing the stockings.”
His gaze twinkled when he asked, “The party planning aspect of the holidays?”
“Yes,” I said, laughing. “That’s exactly right.”
I bustled around the kitchen, pulling food out of the fridge. Christmas music warbled in the background with a vague song. A wrinkled, cooked-apple danish that JJ had made for me—my grandpappy’s recipe—waited in the fridge while I gathered ingredients for a hasty Christmas Eve dinner.
Cold, boiled potatoes and hard-boiled eggs for a quick potato salad. A rotisserie chicken from the fridge, still whole and browned and delicious, even if chilled.
While it wasn’t exactly a Christmas feast, it would be just right. The real food party would happen once the boys came home and I indulged them with all their favorite dishes in the greatest gluttony of the year.
“So,” I drawled. “Why did you quit coaching? I’ve been meaning to ask for a while now.”
He grunted. “Good question.”
“What, you don’t know?”
“I do. It’s just that quitting coaching was a hard decision. I really didn’t want to leave the kids but there wasn’t enough money in it for Celeste to afford a college education. Besides, I wanted her to learn how to work. When T&C took off, I just went with it.”
“My boys loved you as a coach and a teacher,” I said, parroting what all three of them had mentioned. Nicholas had said,yeah, he was coolwhen I talked to him about Tanner on Sunday.
From Nicholas, that was high praise.
“They were great students. Landon had determination a mile wide, and I’d never seen such innate competitiveness as I did in Max.”
“Gets it from his father.”
“I dunno,” Tanner drawled. “I think I see some of that in his mother.”
I laughed. “Fair’s fair.”
The compliments he’d given about my boys, and about me, rang deep. Truly, they were amazing sons. Rambunctious and tiring and sometimes utterly exhausting, but still amazing humans. I couldn’t be more proud.
“And you like cleaning other people’s houses?” I asked with just enough humor in my voice that he wouldn’t take me too seriously. “I mean, you essentially went from babysitting other people’s kids to cleaning up after them.”
He laughed, and his teeth appeared white against the stubbled growth of beard. Behind him, the fire flared. How odd that we’d be getting this very general basics out of the way after weeks of talking nightly about the deep stuff.
“I like the money that comes from it.” Tanner straightened, clapping wood shavings off his hands. “I like the flexibility. At least, when I have employees that actually show up.”
I gestured around my house with a wave.
“Well, you’ve certainly outdone yourself here.”
The snap of the growing fire replied. I glanced up but he stared at the flames contemplatively.
