After Happily Ever Afte- Astrid Ohletz Page 0,41
They stayed that way, Anna’s head buried into the softness of Lane’s neck, until Lane’s body relaxed, tension seeming to fade from her muscles.
“Kids are hard work.”
In spite of herself, Anna chuckled. “Yeah. They are. They have the ability to scare the crap out of you and make everything really good, all in the same minute.”
Lane nodded.
“Lane, you don’t have to take them again like today, I really appreciate it, but—”
“No. No, I had fun. After the horror feeling that Toby was gone, we had fun. It was hard, and I hadn’t realised how much entertaining they need. Did you know Ella hates picking up her stuff?”
“Oh yeah.”
“We had a ten-minute discussion about why it was her job.”
“Yeah, I’ve been working on that one.” She tried to put on her best expression of gravitas, pretty sure that showing amusement right now was not the best option here.
“I almost lost Toby.”
Slowly, Anna kissed her again, softly. This time, Lane returned it. It was easy to fall into this feeling, to not stop until Lane let go first. When she did, Anna rested their foreheads together. “Lane, you didn’t lose him,” she said. “You found him.”
“Well, I did lose him. Then I found him.”
“Which is all that matters.” Still, trying to be reassuring was getting difficult. Laughter threatened to spill out of Anna.
“What?” Lane’s eyes narrowed at her, and Anna knew she was busted.
“What, what? You’re laughing!”
The whiny tone made Anna smile even harder.
“I’m sorry—you’re just adorable when you freak out.”
“Am not.” Lane’s bottom lip was practically sticking out.
“Are too. Normally it’s me freaking out.”
“Shut up.”
“Aunty Na!”
Both of them jumped at Ella’s shout from the kitchen.
“Aunty Na! Toby just threw the last of his potato at me—oh! That means we’re both finished. Can we have ice cream now?”
They waited, looking at each other.
“Please?”
“There it is.” Anna shook her head in mock weariness, then raised her voice. “Only if you’ve actually finished everything!”
Silence was her answer.
“Lane—thanks for taking them today; I really did appreciate it.”
“It was okay—in the end, anyway. Did you get everything for the party?”
“Uh…”
All Lane had to do was cross her arms and raise an eyebrow for Anna to feel sheepish.
“I got called in to work! I couldn’t.” But even Anna knew her protests were falling on deaf ears. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“You better. Don’t want you panicking the night before.”
“I’m not the type to do that, Lane.”
The bark of laughter was sufficient to show Lane’s thoughts on that.
“What if—”
“Stop it, Anna.”
“But he could—”
“Stop it.”
“But Kym—”
“Anna! It’s fine. Everything is going to be fine.”
Embracing her inner child, Anna humphed and leaned back on the couch. Sitting to either side of Anna, Kym and Lane exchanged a glance over their wine glasses and made a poor show of trying not to laugh.
Anna opened her mouth, and Kym clapped her hand over it. Unable to speak, Anna tried to convey her displeasure at the motion by tugging at the offending hand, then glaring at Kym. Finally managing to pry it away, she wrinkled her nose.
“Why does your hand smell like ice cream?”
Looking everywhere but at Anna, Kym gave an overly exaggerated shrug. “It doesn’t.”
“Uh, yeah it does.” In full detective mode, Anna raised her eyebrows. “Did you feed them ice cream?”
“Uh, no. I had some after they went to bed.”
“You’re my best friend, Kym, but you’re a terrible liar. They’d already had some before you got here, and I told you that. You let their big cute eyes wear you down.”
Squaring her shoulders, Kym sipped her wine. “What Ella, Toby, and I do when you’re not here is between us.”
“Oh, really?”
“Really.”
“The three of you are a combination that terrifies me.”
“You love it.”
“I wouldn’t say as much, but thank you for taking them tonight, you saved me. I had no time.”
“You know I don’t mind, goober.”
Clearing her throat to attract Kym and Anna’s attention, Lane put her glass onto the coffee table and stared Anna down. “Weren’t you going to sort everything on Tuesday?”
“Uh, yes, but then I had that emergency, remember? I even had to have Mum pick up Toby, and I was stuck at the hospital until nine.”
“And Wednesday?”
“You were going to take them for me, but you got called in, even though it was your day off.”
“Right—but I thought your mum was helping yesterday?”
“She had to take Dad to an appointment. So that left the last minute.”
With a laugh, Kym nudged her. “You’re so type A. Tonight wasn’t the last minute; tomorrow morning would be.”
Anna raised her eyebrows. “I am