“I want cookies,” I reply and pull the flour toward me. “Here, I don’t think you had enough flour on your cheek.” I dip my fingers in the white powder and wipe them on Seth’s cheek, making him giggle.

“Do not have a flour fight in my kitchen,” Jill warns us. Seth and I grin at each other, then each take a small handful and throw it at Jilly, making her hair and red T-shirt white.

“I’m sorry, did you say something, sugar?”

“You’re both brats!” She laughs and brushes the flour out of her hair. Thor comes running over to see what all the ruckus is about, and manages to get coated in flour too.

“Thor looks old.” Seth giggles.

“He looks very distinguished with his gray hair,” Jill agrees and then pours the chocolate chips into the batter, giving it a good stir. “Let’s drop these onto the cookie sheets and then we can bake them.”

She pulls the sugar cookies out of the oven and sets them on a rack to cool as we replace them with a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Finally, when those are in the oven, she sighs and blows a wayward strand of hair out of her face. “You know, maybe we can bake the peanut butter another day. This is hard work.”

“Pansy,” Seth taunts her and then laughs his head off.

“No chocolate milk for you,” Jill replies, throwing him a mock glare.

He quickly recovers. “I was just kidding.”

While the cookies bake, I order pizza, and when the first batch of chocolate chip is done, we all sit at Jill’s table and sip chocolate milk and nibble the hot cookies.

“So good,” Jill moans.

“These are even better than Grandma’s!”

“Don’t tell her that,” I warn him with a laugh.

“Nah, that would just hurt her feelings.”

There are moments when my kid can be the most compassionate person I’ve ever met. He’s always worried about hurting the feelings of those he loves. I hope he never loses that.

“I accidently farted in class today.”

“Aaaand we’re back to being twelve,” I mutter under my breath as Jill chokes on her chocolate milk, laughing her ass off.

“I didn’t mean to!”

“Dude, really?”

“You asked how my day was.” He grins and stuffs a whole cookie in his mouth.

“No, I don’t believe we did, actually.”

“Well, you were gonna. I could feel it.”

“Never a dull moment with you two, that’s for sure.” Jill wipes the tears from her eyes and then coos down to Thor, “No, buddy, you can’t have these cookies. Chocolate is very bad for puppies. Yes it is.” She cups the canine’s face in her hands and kisses his forehead, points to his blanket, and turns around when Thor obeys her, lying down.

“I’m glad we’re here,” I murmur to her and brush my knuckles down her cheek, wiping a speck of flour away with my thumb.

“Pizza!” Seth exclaims when the doorbell rings and he runs to the front door to retrieve the food.

“I’m glad you’re here too,” Jill replies softly. “I’m having fun.”

“We are having a blast, sugar.”

“Jill, can we eat our pizza in the living room and watch a movie?” Seth calls out.

“That sounds perfect,” Jill calls back and then turns to me. “Snuggle up on the couch with me?”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” I reply.

Jill loads Transformers into her DVD player. Seth and Thor settle on the floor with blankets and pillows, and Jill and I are on the couch. The pizza is devoured within minutes, so we settle back to watch the movie.

“We have to frost the sugar cookies,” Jill announces halfway into the movie, then glances down and laughs. Both Seth and Thor are out cold, snoring deeply. “Or not.”

“Can we stay tonight?” I ask without thinking, and then decide fuck it. I want to be with her.

“We can’t . . .” she begins, but I hush her with my fingers on her lips.

“No, we can’t. But I can hold you, and Seth and Thor are out for the count. They won’t stir until morning.”

“I’ve missed sleeping beside you,” she admits with a whisper, and the tension I didn’t know I was holding melts out of me. I hug her close and bury my nose in her hair, breathing in scents of vanilla and chocolate.

“Me too, baby. I say we take it where we can get it. I want to hold you tonight.”

“Okay.” She smiles up at me and finally presses her lips to mine. She drags her small hand down my face, and before I can push the kiss any further, she backs away, leans her forehead to mine, and brushes her fingers through my hair. “I’d love nothing more.”

CHAPTER Ten

JILLIAN

“So what you’re saying is, you like bacon,” I say dryly while Seth chomps on his sixth strip of crispy bacon.

“Yeah.” He nods. “Bacon should be on everything.”

“I’ve seen it on doughnuts. And ice cream,” Zack mentions, pouring me another cup of coffee.

“Really?” Seth perks up and slips half a slice of bacon to Thor, who is sitting patiently at Seth’s feet. “Did you try it?”

“I tried the doughnut. It was good.”

“That sounds . . . interesting,” I reply with a laugh and sip my coffee. “It’s snowing pretty hard out there.”