Fight to the Finish (First to Fight #3)(38)
“Fork, plate, knife, spoon.” He grinned up at her, and her heart once more caught in her throat. “Got it.”
As he gathered the dishes in his hands to take them to the small four-seater kitchen table, Graham walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. The touch was intimate, though not sexual. And when he rested his chin on top of her head, she leaned back into the embrace, just a little. Then gasped and twisted in his hold to see Zach’s reaction.
He stood, watching, one plate still in his hand, head cocked to the side as if still taking it all in.
“We talked,” Graham said solemnly. “Right Zach? He’s good with it if we kiss and date and stuff.”
That forced Kara to muffle a laugh, for her baby’s sake. “Oh, did you now?” Her voice was light, but she watched diligently for any sign of problems with her son. “Always good to know the menfolk can come to a decision about such matters and then let the women know.”
Graham’s quiet laughter was unmistakable, as she was plastered against his chest. But Zach simply shrugged, as if to say I don’t get why you’d wanna kiss, but oh well. Then he went back to setting the table. The unofficial seal of approval from a ten-year-old.
Kara brought the food to the table, glad she’d splurged for the nice serving bowls for the steamed vegetables and potatoes. The chicken, sadly, sat on a plain plate, ready to be forked up. Couldn’t be helped, she had to cut off the spending somewhere.
For all his whining for wings, Zach inhaled his dinner as usual. He took seconds, as did Graham, and cleared his plate without being reminded once. The talk with Graham seemed to have set him in a mood to behave, because he didn’t immediately run off to his room. He settled back down when Kara made herself and Graham coffee.
“What, no coffee for you?” Graham asked him when Zach accepted the cup of hot cocoa, made from her own mix. Zach grinned and shook his head.
“The kid and I have a date with destiny for a while,” Graham informed her. “Shouldn’t take too long, since I plan to whup on him.”
“Whatever,” Zach said with a worldly snort. “You couldn’t whup me if you had an entire platoon holding me down first.”
“Good one,” Graham murmured, smiling in appreciation at the comeback. “Save that one, it’s a keeper.”
“I know.” He grinned, and her little boy was back again. “Mom, can we be excused?”
She was about to say yes, when Graham said, “We need to help your mother with the dishes first.” Zach opened his mouth, but Graham added, “She cooked. We can show some gratitude by cleaning up.”
“Okay.” Easy with the idea, Zach stood and carried his plate to the sink, returning for hers. “You done, Mom?”
She just stared at Graham in shock. “I’m sorry, do you have wizard powers?”
“Nah. He’s got something important to look forward to. And he knows I’m going to make his video game life miserable, so he’s just delaying the punishment.” Standing, he carried his own plate to the sink, kissing the top of her head as he passed.
Zach made a gagging noise by the sink before turning it on.
“Go sit. Watch TV. Read a book. Something that doesn’t involve hovering.” With a nudge, Graham pulled her chair out and sent her ambling toward the master bedroom. “We’ve got it.”
Feeling like an intruder for a bit, she watched as Graham and Zach worked in tandem to clean not only the plates, but dump the leftovers into a plastic container—located by Zach—and washed the serving bowls and pots as well.
Okay, then. She’d just go . . . read a book. Or something.
*
TWO hours later, Graham stretched his neck. Somehow, he was more sore after sitting down and using nothing but his thumbs ninety minutes than he had been after two three-hour-long practices. He was officially getting old when sitting took a toll on his body.
He wandered out into the living room and found Kara, bare feet propped up on the coffee table, typing away at the laptop in her lap. When she looked up at him, he smiled to see dark-rimmed glasses sitting on her face, framing her gorgeous eyes.
“Sexy,” he commented, settling beside her as she moved the pillow to make room for him. “How have I not seen those before?”
“Only for reading and computer work. I don’t often read in front of other people, so you wouldn’t have.” She continued typing, so he let her continue. But he did lean back against the cushion and tilt his head so he could watch. Some women might have been annoyed with that. Kara simply kept going. Her fingers—slender, graceful, unadorned by any rings or polish—flew over the keyboard.
“You’re fast.”
“Gotta be, when you don’t have a lot of time to write and your second job depends on it.” She clicked on the mouse, sighed, then smiled. “Done.”
“What’s this all about?”
“An article someone else wrote. I had to write the intro for it, and then do some work to hyperlink it. I’m actually not great at the whole technical blog aspect. It’s not my favorite part.”
He’d seen the blog, read it, considered it a lifesaver for when he had Zach over and needed to know if something was okay with his allergies or using her ever-updated list of foods on the OK list so parents didn’t have to spend as much time hunting up suggestions for brands to try. And it looked pretty solid to him. “So who runs the blog, then?”