Everything for You (Bergman Brothers #5)(64)

“Exactly.”

“Kladdkaka!” Linnie yells, having noticed him, throwing off her blanket and hopping off the couch.

Gavin frowns down at her. “What did you call me?”

She crosses her arms and frowns up at him. “Uncle Ollie promised you weren’t going to be grumpy.”

Gavin crouches until they’re eye level, making both of his knees audibly pop. “Perhaps Uncle Ollie shouldn’t make promises he can’t keep.”

My niece stares at Gavin, then leans in. He leans back. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Fudge,” I correct him.

Linnie holds his eyes. “A staring context.”

“Contest,” he says. “And who says I’m participating? Staring contests have to be mutually agreed upon.”

Her eyes cross as she leans closer. His mouth quirks at the corner, like he’s fighting a smile.

“You blinked!” Linnie hops up and down, turning to me. “Kladdkaka blinked.”

“What is she calling me?” Gavin grumbles.

I smile as Linnie launches herself at me and immediately starts tugging at my hair, trying to wrangle it into a pigtail. “If you’re extra nice the whole time you’re here,” I tell him, “maybe I’ll explain afterward.”

He scowls, strolling past us into the kitchen. “Well,” he says, “the chef is in. What’ll it be?”

Linnie peers up, wide-eyed, like she suddenly remembered how hungry she is. “Guac!” she yells. “Yogurt! Bean and cheese quesadilla!”

“Not together,” Gavin says, opening the fridge.

“Yuck, no.” Linnie scrunches up her nose as she tumbles off of me and follows him. “Yogurt. Then guac. Then quesadilla. Then…” Linnie glances over her shoulder at me.

I’m in the process of angling myself on the sofa so I can watch them, biting my cheek so I won’t groan when another sharp stab of pain cuts through my stomach.

She leans in and whispers something in Gavin’s ear. He listens, then cups his hands around her ear and whispers back.

Linnie laughs. Hard.

Then Gavin does something I’ve never seen: he really smiles. A wide grin lifting that stern mouth. There’s the tiniest sparkle in his eye. And then he stands and pulls out the stool I keep for her, sets her up at the counter with a big piece of paper and art supplies. Fiddling around the fridge, he pulls out her favorite strawberry banana yogurt, then a few ripe avocados I stuck in there to make them last. My cheeks heat when I see him critically inspect that half-eaten wheel of triple cream brie before he shoves it aside and helps himself to my vegetable crisper.

Linnea turns to me and points to the speakers on my kitchen counter. “’Canto, Uncle Ollie?”

I’m pretty useless right now, but I do have my phone on me and synched to the speakers. Ten seconds later, I’ve got Encanto’s soundtrack playing.

While the movie’s upbeat opening number fills my kitchen, Gavin peels the lid off Linnie’s yogurt, plops a spoon in it, then slides it her way. Shoveling yogurt into her mouth, she leans over her artwork, paintbrush in hand, tongue stuck out in concentration, her hair perilously close to falling into wet paint. Gavin steps beside her, and while I can’t tell what’s being said over the music, I’m pretty sure he asks her if he can pull up her hair, because she nods yes, before his hands carefully brush back every fine dark strand obscuring her face.

Then he twists her hair into a soft little bun, big hands, like his big feet with a soccer ball, somehow so deft and dexterous, nimbly wrapping it into a hair tie without a single wince from Linnea, not one hair pulled or pinched, which is more than I can say for my uncle-doing-hair track record.

I watch them as they jam to Encanto in the kitchen, Gavin shaking his shoulders to the beat of the music a little, like he doesn’t even know he’s doing it, Linnie bouncing her knees and belting a high note.

My heart feels like the avocado Gavin’s mashing up.

Linnie paints, sloppily eating her yogurt. Gavin makes guacamole, chopping cilantro, mincing onion and garlic, juicing a lime, his fingers sprinkling salt, cracking pepper. Then he dips a chip from the bag that he found in the pantry into the guac and offers it to Linnie.

She crunches on it thoughtfully, chews, swallows.

Then she bounces on her step stool, so happy with what’s in her mouth, she nearly falls off.

Gavin catches her, then gently scoots the stool closer to the counter, a tight, worried expression on his face as she smiles up at him and offers him a high five for his amazing guacamole.

He high-fives her back. And that’s when I know his fate is sealed.

Because the way to Linnea’s heart is her stomach. And her stomach loves guacamole.

Over chips and guac, Gavin joins Linnie in her artistic efforts. Linnie’s mouth moves like she’s talking at him nonstop, though I can’t hear her over the music, her butt bouncing to Encanto.

I could watch those two act like old friends in my kitchen forever, but then my stomach goes from bad to worse, making me speed-walk to the bathroom once again.

And then there’s nothing pleasant to say or think for quite a while.





20





GAVIN





Playlist: “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” Ben L’Oncle Soul