"What is that perfume you're wearing?" She laughed.
"Sorry, I'll go wash up.
Natalie had a new bottle and insisted on spraying everyone with it." I waved her to my bedroom with the hand that wasn't plugging my nose.
"Go use mine.
Samuel's trying to sleep next to the main bath." And when she just stood there.
"Hurry, for Pete's sake.
That stuff is rank." She sniffed her arm.
"Not to my nose.
It smells like roses." "There are no roses," I told her, "that smell like formaldehyde." She grinned at me, then bounced off to my bathroom to scrub up.
"So," she said when she returned, "since we're both under house arrest until the vamps settle down, and since I was an ace student today and got my homework done at school--how about you and I make some brownies?" We made brownies, and she helped me change the oil in my van.
It was getting dark by the time we set up my air compressor to blow out the water in my very small underground sprinkler system for the winter when Samuel appeared at the door bleary-eyed and growly, a brownie in one hand.
He made some grumbles about twittering girls who made too much noise.
I looked up at the darkening sky and thought the lateness of the hour had more to do with his rising than the roar of my air compressor.
He made Jesse laugh with his snarls.
He made a pretense of being offended and turned to me.
"Are you finished?" He could see I was rolling up cords and hose, so I rolled my eyes at him.
"Disrespect," he told Jesse, shaking his head sadly.
"That's all I get.
Maybe if I take you out and feed you, she'll start treating me with the respect I deserve." But he grabbed the compressor before I could start rolling it to the pole barn.
"Where are you taking us?" Jesse said.
"Mexican," he said positively.
She groaned and suggested a Russian caf? that had just opened nearby.
The two of them argued restaurants all the way to the pole barn and back and into the car.
In the end, we went out for pizza, a place on Columbia with a playground, noise, and great food.
Adam was waiting, watching the little TV in my kitchen, when we got back.
He looked tired.
"Boss run you ragged?" I asked sympathetically, handing him a brownie.
He looked at it.
"Did you make this, or did Jesse?" Her indignant "Dad" got her an unrepentant grin.
"Just kidding," he said as he ate.