Page 97 of Loving Kai

“You’ve never dated someone like Maggie.”

Abe was finally hungry by the time his break came around, and he had a cup of chicken noodle soup and some crackers. He was sitting in a booth at the back of the restaurant when Maggie approached him.

“How’s the soup?”

“It’s good. It’s better when I make it, but it’s good.”

“You guys don’t follow a recipe?”

“We mostly do. Gentry just goes a little light on the spices.”

She sat for a moment. “Where are we going to go on our date?”

“You mean our second—”

“Don’t even start.”

“We could wait until Memorial Day. Of course, that would mean sharing it with Kai.”

“I don’t mind that. But that is still five days away.”

“Hmm. You could come over for dinner.”

“When?”

“Um…tonight?”

Maggie smiled. “What time?”

“I put Kai to bed at eight. So, it depends on whether you want to be there for story time or not.”

“Don’t you need to close tonight since Gentry opened?”

“Dammit. I guess Kai is going to bed at nine tonight.”

“Text me when you’re leaving your mom’s and I’ll head over.”

A family came in through the door, and Maggie bent down and kissed Abe. “Back to work.”

He took her arm as she started to leave and pulled her down for another kiss.

She put a hand to her chest. “My goodness, Mr. Buchanan.”

He grinned. “You started it.”

Chapter twenty-four

“Your dad is a party pooper.”

The rest of the day dragged on as Abe grew anxious for it to be over. Maggie left at six, and Gentry left at seven, leaving Abe to run the kitchen and serve the customers. He and Gentry took turns on the shift to give them more time at home with the boys.

When eight o’clock finally arrived, Abe shut everything down as quickly as he could and headed to his parents’ house. He was anxious to see Kai, even though Allie had assured him in the two phone calls he made during the day that everything was fine.

When he walked into the house, Kai was on John’s lap looking through an old atlas. Abe walked up to them. “Are you two planning a trip?”

“By the time the boy is old enough to know what a map is, I’m afraid there won’t be any physical proof that we once managed to get to where we needed to go with a paper map.”

“I’ll make sure he knows what a map is, Dad.”