Page 302 of Branded
Well, hell, it was fatherly.
And that wasn’t something Ethan or I had ever experienced.
Cas bent a little, meeting my eyes. “I’ll explain later,” he murmured. “Just eat now.”
Explain.
Right. He needed to explain why he was in my house.
And yeah, maybe I needed to explain why I wasn’t freaking out about him being in my house, cooking pancakes, loading my kid up with sugar, and in my house.
But instead of freaking out, I grabbed a fork, cut off an edge of the pancake, shoved it into my mouth…and holy sweet baby Jesus, that was absolutely divine. “Mmm,” I groaned, immediately scooping up more of the pancake and scarfing it down. Ethan was doing the same…because I didn’t raise a fool.
Carbs.
Sweet, glorious carbs.
Okay, that was why I didn’t kick Cas out—and kick his ass for the intrusion.
The carbs.
Not because my heart was pounding against my ribs and warmth was in my belly and?—
Cas dropped another pancake onto my plate.
Right.
I should eat the pancakes.
Or…school—I should focus on being a mother and getting Ethan to school, not on my stomach, no matter how delicious the pancakes were.
“I made his lunch,” Cas said quietly, opening Ethan’s train-themed lunchbox and showing me the contents. A sandwich, a plastic container with cut-up veggies, a banana, and a pack of gummies. What I’d pack.
“Ethan helped me,” Cas said, zipping it back up. He winked and embers flared in my belly. “Even with the veggies.”
“I cut up the carrots, Mom,” Ethan said through yet another pancake. “And I got dressed on my own.”
Which explained the raucous riot of colors that formed his outfit that morning.
“That’s really good, buddy. Did your alarm wake you up?”
“Nope.” More pancake into his mouth. “Cas did.”
“I heard it going off,” Cas said quietly. “Just poked my head in to make sure he was up and moving.”
“Heard it because you were in my house?” I asked dryly.
Pink on his cheeks, his eyes darting away. “Something like that.”
“Right.”
His brows lifted. “More pancakes?”
I wanted to refuse, solely on principle. But my stomach rumbled, stealing that from me. The bitch. Except, even as I thought that, my lips twitched and I nodded. “Did you get any?”
He shook his head. “I’m good.”
There was something a little edgy about that statement, but I didn’t get a chance to push it because then he asked, “I have a couple extra tickets to tonight’s game. Do you guys want to come?”
