Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Family is what you make.

WINTER

"Okay, boys," I said, rolling up my sleeves in preparation of what was to come.. This was going to get intense "If you want to help cook, you need to help clean first. Deal?"

"Deal!" they chorused, already racing to gather scattered toys from the ground and dispose them in the toy basket..

Derek appeared at my elbow with a dish towel as he beamed at me and said. "Orders, chef?"

"You're on dish duty," I said, handing him the bag of vegetables that he took from my hand. "Wash everything that's going into the soup. And try not to flood the kitchen."

"I make no promises," he said solemnly, but his eyes were dancing with mirth.

For the next two hours, the apartment was filled with the kind of organized and productive chaos I hadn't experienced since Thomas was small. Back then, it was just is two against the world and I wondered, where this that little baby of mine go.

The twins helped me chop vegetables with butter knives—safe but effective—while telling me about everything from school to their favorite movies to their theories about why cats always land on their feet.

Derek proved to be surprisingly helpful once he stopped trying to be in charge of everything and allowed himself to be led by someone else. Thankfully he didn't have a fragile masculinity that make him insecure to receiving order from a woman, nonetheless. Stiles had that flaw, and it caused a lot of problems in our marriage.. But it seemed Derek not only respected his grandmother but all women in question.

He followed directions well and only set off the smoke alarm once, when he got distracted by the twins' debate about whether superheroes would make good teachers or if they were better off saving the people from the bad guys.

"The soup smells amazing," he said, appearing behind me as I stirred the pot. "What did you do to it?"

"Magic," I said mysteriously, then relented seeing his adorable pout on his face that reminded me the twins got it from him. "Actually, it's just patience. Good soup can't be rushed."

"Is that a metaphor for something?"

I glanced up at him, surprised by the question. "Maybe. Good things take time to develop properly. If you try to hurry the process, you end up with something that looks right but doesn't taste the same."

"Are we still talking about soup?"

Our eyes met, and I felt that same electric current from earlier, when he'd caught me as we fell. This time, neither of us looked away.

"Mummy, Daddy's making faces at you," Jamal announced from the kitchen table, where he was drawing what appeared to be a portrait of our family—all four of us holding hands in front of a house with a chimney that was definitely too large for any logical accuracy.

"I am not making faces," Derek protested, though his cheeks were slightly pink as he looked away, pretending to rub his eyes.

"You're making the same face you made when Mrs. Peterson from next door brought us cookies, after you burned the omelets we were to eat for breakfast." Andre added helpfully. "The happy-but-scared face."

"I don't have a happy-but-scared face." Derek said, looking scandalized.

"You totally do," both boys said in unison.

I turned back to the soup to hide my smile, but I could feel Derek's eyes still on me. The kitchen felt smaller suddenly, and I wondered if I was the only one that felt this tension around us.

"Dinner in ten minutes," I announced, needing something concrete to focus on as I cleared my throat and turned to them. "Who wants to set the table?"

"We do!" The twins scrambled to help, and the moment passed—or transformed into something quieter, more domestic, but no less significant than the one that was existing between me and Derek.

"Yes, chef?" he said with a grin that did dangerous things to my heart.

"You're on toast duty. Think you can handle that without setting off the smoke alarm?"

"Hey, I resent that," he protested, but he was already pulling bread from the cabinet. "I'll have you know I make excellent toast. It's everything after toast where I run into trouble."

The next twenty minutes were a revelation. The twins chattered constantly, telling me about their school, their friends, their favorite books. They asked a million questions about everything from how to tell when vegetables were clean enough to why eggs turned solid when you cooked them.

Derek proved to be surprisingly helpful once given specific, simple tasks. He managed the toast without incident and even figured out how to set the small table without being asked and I have him a thumbs up and he literally lit up. If not for the fact that he was bigger than me, and looked like he carried weights of around 200kg, I would have taken him as one of the boys.

 More importantly, he watched me work with an expression that made me feel like I was performing magic with what I was doing instead of just making a simple meal.

"You make it look so easy," he said when I flipped the omelet easily, not letting it get burned.

"Years of practice," I replied, then immediately wished I hadn't. I didn't want to think about all those years of cooking for people who took me for granted.

"Mummy, are you sad?" Jamal asked, tuning into my mood with the uncanny perception children sometimes possessed.

"No, sweetheart. Just thinking."

"About what?" Andre wanted to know.

I considered how to answer that. About my son who now hated me. About my marriage that had crumbled. About how I'd somehow ended up in a stranger's apartment, cooking for his children while he looked at me like I was something precious.

"About how nice it is to cook for people who actually want to eat what I'm making," I said finally, and it was the truth.