Page 50 of Bulletproof

“I don’t mind,” I assured him, “if it’s fine with you.”

“It’s fine with me, but we have a whole buffet out there to⁠—”

“It’s gross.” Scott made retching noises for me, just in case I missed the disgust in his voice.

Becca took my hand and led me forward, chattering on about Jamie and how they had gone horseback riding the day before. Scott was doing his lunges beside us, breathing out sharply, making the hiya sound the whole way.

The kitchen was almost bigger than my last apartment. You could play dodgeball in it.

“I want eggs,” Becca whined. “Please, Jory.”

“I want macaroni,” Scott told me between punching his fists in the air.

I made both because it was easy. Becca got scrambled eggs with grated cheese on top, with a pork chop I’d found and a side of peeled apples. I made macaroni and cheese from scratch for Scott, accompanied by another pork chop and the same apples. He had no idea that mac and cheese could be made on the stove and not in a microwave.

“My grandmother made it like this,” I told him.

He was leery, but it smelled good, so he tried it. As I was washing the dishes, Becca told me that her daddy let them ride in the long hallway. I had no idea what she meant until Scott explained it to me.

Becca had a tricycle, Scott had a scooter, and I got his skateboard. Riding a bike came right back the second you climbed on, and lucky for me, so did gliding over marble on a skateboard.

Becca’s squeals of delight were the best thing I had heard in weeks. Scott’s laughter was loud, and when I did the spin for him on the back wheels, the way he looked at me—eyes wide and dancing, like I was Tony Hawk—made me smile. What had started as speculative became friendly. He liked me. But I liked him back, and he could probably tell.

We were taking a break, finishing the cleanup in the kitchen, when there was a shriek of joy from Becca.

“Mommy!”

I turned in time to see a very elegant-looking woman, wrapped in a long cashmere overcoat, crossing the room toward us.

“I see you have helpers.” She smiled at me as David appeared in the doorway.

“Yes, ma’am, and very excellent ones, I might add.”

She nodded, taking in her son on my right, drying the dishes, her daughter on my left, sitting on the counter, drying the pans.

“What did they eat?”

Before I could explain, Scott ran down my culinary skills for her, explaining about the epiphany of cooking pasta instead of nuking it and how Becca had eaten apples.

“You hate apples,” she reminded her daughter.

“But Jory cut off the skin and let me put them in peanut butter.”

“He made pork chops like you fry bacon. Did you know you could do that?”

“I did,” she said with a sigh, her eyes all over me as she strode forward, her hand extended.

I rinsed off the soap, dried my hands on the dish towel, and took her offered hand.

“Elsa Fisher,” she said, smiling at me.

I smiled back. “Jory Harcourt.”

Her eyes locked on mine.

“I’m sorry there were no greens, but nothing on the buffet table was, in their opinion, edible, and my offer of salad did not go over at all. We settled on the apples.”

“Apples are better than I normally do, I assure you.”