Page 3 of Falling Back to You

I absolutely did. And for good reason because my half princess, half feral gremlin of a daughter loved to climb trees (read: fall out of them) and wear princess dresses in the dead of winter without a coat unless I made her.

No one warned you half the battle of parenthood was convincing your kid to keep the appropriate amount of clothes on.

I checked the weather app on my phone. Okay, maybe I was overreacting a smidge because it wasn’t supposed to drop below the high sixties today. But October could be unpredictable, so wearing a sweater never hurt.

Was I a helicopter parent? Textbook, baby. But she was all I had, so sue me for being a little protective.

Whisking the milk into the powdered pancake mix, I slipped a spoonful of cottage cheese in for extra protein. Khia had yet to tell the difference, so I was calling that a parenting win.

Last week, I'd experimented with adding pureed spinach, and that was a no go. Baby steps.

I scooped the first batch of batter onto the griddle, the fragrant smell of browning butter filling the kitchen. I took that first life-changing sip of coffee and hummed in appreciation as the caffeine hit my bloodstream.

My phone vibrated with a text on the counter, and I sighed. The moment of quiet was nice while it lasted.

MYLES:

You good to carpool?

Myles Delavan was my second best friend (after Grey, of course), fellow teammate with the Chargers, and my brother-in-law since he’d married my baby sister, Juliet, almost two years ago.

ME:

you driving or jules

MYLES:

Me. Jules’s car is in Grey’s shop getting the fan belt fixed.

ME:

pancakes

MYLES:

Was that a question? I couldn’t tell with the flagrant lack of punctuation.

ME:

obviously

and aren’t we fancy using big words

MYLES:

*eye roll emoji*

Chocolate chip.

ME:

you wound me

MYLES:

I have no idea what you’re talking about. *smirk emoji*

Jules says blueberry.