Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 802(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 802(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
“Why are you laughing, please?” he asks.
“Daddy’s making me laugh.”
“Why, please?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I pat his hand and Dec inches his way along the island, bending and pulling out a bowl before shuffling back and sliding it in front of Albi.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
“Welcome. Juice?”
“Yes, please and thank you.”
Dec spins and goes to the fridge. “Camryn?”
“I’ve had some,” I murmur, licking my lips, tasting the orange. “But I’ll take a coffee.”
“Please,” Albi adds.
“Please,” I say around my smile.
Dec looks over his shoulder, his gaze full of playfulness as he takes a step back and slides the juice onto the counter before going to the coffee machine, keeping his back to us.
Albi hops back down from the stool and goes to the larder cupboard, heaving it open and reaching up on his tippy-toes to get the Coco Pops, tired of waiting for Dec. “Thank you,” he says, closing the cupboard and going to the fridge, pulling out the milk and closing the door again by backing into it, his hands full. “Thank you.” He comes back to the island, dumps his finds next to his bowl and goes to the drawer to get a spoon. “Thank you,” he says to the drawer as he closes it. I watch him, smiling, feeling Dec watching him too as he climbs back up onto the stool and tips his Coco Pops into the bowl. “Thank you.” Then he pours the milk, spilling more onto the counter than he gets in the bowl. “Thank you.” A big scoop with his spoon loads it, and he shovels it into his mouth. “Thank you,” he mumbles around his mouthful.
I chuckle to myself as Dec, finally with the tent he was sporting deflated, brings my coffee over and rests his forearms on the counter. “That good, fella?”
“Yes, thank you.” Albi spoons another pile of the chocolatey cereal into his mouth. “Thank you,” he says to the spoon.
I can’t cope. I snort into my cup as I take a sip, and Dec shakes his head, retrieving his phone off the side and checking it. “What are we doing today?”
“Ice skating!” Albi chants. “Please.”
Oh, I thought we’d escaped that. Dec grabs a loaf of bread out of the cupboard and fills the toaster, throwing me a pained face.
“Please can Mr. Percival come?” Albi asks. “Thank you.”
“Mr. Percival?” I laugh. “He can hardly walk, Albi.”
“I want to visit Mr. Percival again, thank you. Can we go see him after ice skating, thank you? He’s ninety-nine, Daddy! Thank you. Nearly a whole hundred! Please. That’s a really big number, Daddy. Thank you. I’m only four and a half! Please. Mr. Percival said he flew in a Spitfire.” Albi pushes his feet into the footrest on the stool and uses it to stand, leaning over the island to reach for Dec’s phone. “Let me show you what a Spitfire looks like Daddy, please. Type Spitfire into Google.” He stretches.
Slips.
“Albi!” I dive across and grab his arm before he plummets to the hard floor, and despite saving him, I don’t manage to save his breakfast, which goes flying across the island, Coco Pops and chocolate milk spraying everywhere.
“Oopsie Daisy!” Albi sings. “Please.”
“Christ, you frightened me.” I stand and lift him back onto the stool, kissing the top of his head as I hold it with a palm either side, surely squishing his lips. “Don’t move your butt off this stool.”
“Good catch,” Dec says, shaking his head, his hand resting on his chest to ease his racing heart. “When you’re on the stool, your little backside stays on the stool.”
“Thank you,” Albi murmurs sullenly.
“Albi, you don’t have to say please or thank you with everything you say,” I tell him, smiling fondly. “Just if someone gives you something, or you ask for something.”
“But it’s good manners.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I show the ceiling my palms as Dec rounds the island and comes up behind me, dropping a kiss on my cheek before disappearing into the laundry room, returning a second later with a Vax.
“You didn’t say thank you.” Albi isn’t scowling, but he’s close, and I rack my brain for what I needed to say thank you for, coming up blank. “Daddy gave you a kiss, and you didn’t say thank you. You said I must say thank you or please if someone gives me something or I ask for something.”
Dec laughs as he starts hoovering up the mess, and I’m momentarily distracted by the vision. It really shouldn’t be sexy, Dec hoovering. And yet, it is. “Thank you,” I murmur, falling into a reverie as Albi tips more Coco Pops into his empty bowl.
A knock on the front door pulls me out of my daze, and Dec looks down his front, to the hoover in his hand.
“I’ll go,” I shout over the noise, hopping off my stool.