but he gave a small laugh. “Not the way I do it.”
“Please, Mommy,” Finn repeated, blissfully ignorant to the way this conversation had gotten dirty.
“Of course,” Jane told Finn, her eyes firmly fixed on Cole. “I can’t wait.”
Neither could Cole…
…
On Wednesday morning, much to Jane’s surprise, Cole appeared in the kitchen not long after Jane had settled Finn at the central bench to watch Bluey on the iPad while she fixed him breakfast. “Oh, hi,” she said.
Finn abandoned his precious screen time in favor of bestowing a running hug on Cole, his little face pressed between Cole’s legs about mid-thigh level, and Jane’s stomach flipped over. His little arms held on tight around the backs of Cole’s legs, and the way that big hand cupped her son’s head made her chest cramp.
Jane tried hard not to think about how quickly Finn and Cole had become a twosome. And how much that was going to suck when Cole left. She knew, she understood that Cole was here on a vacation from his life. Finn, however, was four years old. She’d been consistent in reminding her son whenever he talked about a future that involved Cole that Cole lived in Australia and would be leaving soon. But she knew Finn didn’t really grasp the concept, and, frankly, she was too damn happy that Finn was happy to push too hard.
Instead of being miserable and asking after his father a dozen times a day, he’d been having fun with Cole. And that wasn’t nothing.
But yeah…Finn was going to miss Cole when he left.
So was she. And not just because of how good he was with Finn, but because of how good he was with her. The Anzac cookies on Monday and the jam drops yesterday. The way he’d taken over a lot of parental duties so she was free to work. The way he made her laugh and used innuendo to talk dirty to her right in front of Finn. And the way he always looked at her like she was a popsicle he wanted to lick up.
And after just three nights in his bed, Jane could safely say she’d never been more thoroughly licked up in her life.
“You’re awake early,” she murmured. He usually made it down to the kitchen toward the tail end of breakfast.
“Thought I’d join you guys for breakfast,” he said as Finn loosened his grip and trotted back to the bench and Bluey.
Jane watched as Cole followed him, resting his cane against his thigh as he reached for Finn and swung him up onto the stool. Finn could do it himself, but the apparently unconscious move on Cole’s behalf did funny things to Jane’s pulse.
“I can cook you some eggs,” she said as he turned back to face her. “I do a mean omelet.”
She smiled at the eyebrow raise. It wasn’t that long ago she’d have snippily told him she hoped he didn’t expect her to make him breakfast. And now here she was, offering to cook him something.
After going through three condoms with him last night.
The irony was not, apparently, lost on either of them. He shook his head. “Toast is fine.”
“Oh, come on, it must take a lot of calories to fuel such a big guy. You need to keep your stamina up, after all.”
“I do, do I?”
She nodded, not taking her eyes off the bright gleam of humor lighting the depth of his deep brown gaze. “You do.”
“Have I been…” He slid his eyes sideways to Finn—still engrossed in Bluey—and back again. “Lacking in that department? You have any complaints?”
“Oh, no. None whatsoever.”
He grinned. “Damn straight.”
“So…” She shot him some more flirty eyes because damn she was happy. “Eggs?”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “I’m happy to stick with toast and make it myself. You just keep doing what you’re doing.”
“And you’re going to what? Watch?”
He nodded, this time his eyes going all flirty. “I like to watch.”
Jane laughed but returned to fixing her and Finn’s breakfast. They worked companionably side by side, and damn if that didn’t make her happier. It felt good being in the kitchen like this with him after a night in his bed. So…domesticated.
Much more than a vacation fling, that was for sure, which was dangerous thinking, but Jane didn’t seem to be able to stop.
They ate breakfast together around the central bench with Bluey off. Finn hadn’t even complained as he chatted away happily on myriad topics, leaping from one to the next, mostly engaging Cole and not really requiring