Beard Up(46)

See, the thing about Tunnel, was that he's an absolute terror in the kitchen. My man, he tried to cook, but the inevitable always came true. He burned dinner. Or ruined it by adding too much salt. Or something distracted him, he forgot he was supposed to do something, and he never did it.

Unless it came to cooking on the grill-and he was a master at that. But only when it pertained to the grill, and the grill only.

People with ADHD got distracted easily.

Since it frustrated him beyond belief, I'd always done the cooking, even when I'd come home from a twelve-hour shift. Why? Because I didn't want to see my man upset. If it made life easier for me to do the cooking, I would do it.


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And knowing he was left to his own devices for six years left a hole in my heart the size of Texas.

"You should invite him to dinner," Sienna repeated. "I like that he calls me Dee."

My heart felt happy.

Sienna DeeAnn, my baby girl, didn't know what she was offering Tunnel, or Ghost to her, by asking him over for dinner.

"Why don't you go ask him while I go inside?" I said. "Tamales take a while to get prepared, and I have to lug all of these groceries in."

Groceries that I knew would drive Tunnel insane to watch me carry inside the house while he was watching.

He always hated when I'd go to the store by myself. Especially when we lived in our apartment complex in Benton and I had to lug them up two flights of stairs.

My cat, Taco, twirled around my legs the minute I stepped out of the car, and immediately launched herself into my seat before I could close the door.

I just rolled my eyes and went to the back hatch, opening it easily and grabbing three bags in each hand.

"You better get out of my car before I get back or I'm leaving you in there," I lied to the cat.

The cat eyed me from the dash, where she liked to lay, and flicked her tail in what I assumed was feline amusement.

Normally, the cat got out when she felt like it, but with the weather pushing eighty degrees right now, I didn't want to lock her up in there and accidentally forget about her.

Turns out, after dropping the groceries inside, I didn't need to worry about the cat, because she was outside, hissing at Tunnel, as he brought groceries in.

All of the groceries.

How did men do that?

I wished I had the capability to hold ten bags with one hand. And, three of those bags contained gallons of milk.

Chocolate milk to be exact.

My daughter loved her chocolate milk and wouldn't drink the normal stuff.

Why? Because her father, the man currently staring at me with so much love in his eyes, didn't like it either. He liked chocolate milk and only a certain type. Hence the reason our daughter loved only that certain kind, too.

"Uh, thank you," I said, holding the door open when I got there.

Tunnel walked right in, Sienna trailing behind him with a bag of her own and the cat.

"Did you get the hatch closed?" I questioned as I looked back outside.

It was, indeed, closed.

I shook my head in amazement.

"Yeah," Tunnel said. "Got it closed and got your cat out. She's going to die, one of these days, of heat exhaustion if she's not careful about getting in there." 

See, Tunnel and I were always on the same page.

"I know," I said softly as I watched him move around the kitchen and start putting stuff away. "I tell her that all the time."

Tunnel gave me a wistful look.

I knew that look.

Tunnel hated this cat and always had, since the day that the cat started hating him.

It was amusing to me, since the cat had no problem with me, but the moment that Tunnel came anywhere near Taco, the cat started to go nuts.

Tunnel opened the pantry up and started to put away items, being sure to leave all of the ingredients I would need for the tamales out.

I hadn't told him I was making them, but once he saw all of the ingredients I would need to make them in the bags, he decided on his own that I would be making them tonight.

I started to giggle. "You're terrible."

He shrugged unrepentantly.

So that was how I ended up making tamales and getting my little girl to eat them when she'd always sworn she hated them, and I got to do it while I watched as my daughter fell for Tunnel all over again.





***


Hours later, after Sienna finally settled down enough to go to bed, I was once again lying, panting.

I'd had more sex in the last day than I had in the last six years.

"How do I tell Sienna?" his voice rumbled out into the darkness.

I ran my hand down his chest, exactly like I used to do when I was deep in thought.