“Keys are on the ring by the garage door, Daddy!” Charlie’s little voice came from the kitchen.
He ran a hand over his mouth as he shook his head. “I’m losing my mind,” he said to me before thanking his daughter and heading toward the table. He pressed a kiss into each kid’s head, then swiped his keys off the ring and gave them a jingle. “I’ll see you guys at lunch.”
“It’s a date!” I’d meant it as a joke, but all three Cooper kids froze mid-chew and stared first at me, then their dad.
He grimaced. “It’s just a figure of speech, guys. Don’t worry.” When his eyes met mine, they looked sad, though his smile was still warm. “I’ll text you the directions to my office.”
I lifted a hand. “Looking forward to it.”
The kids finished breakfast, then joined me in the living room to see what I’d brought. “Did you bring more sage?” Charlie asked as she lifted her lava stone necklace to her nose.
Both boys had on their bracelets and that felt pretty dang good. “I did. I also brought…” I paused for dramatic effect as I reached into the bag, then pretended to change my mind. “Never mind. You guys probably don’t care.”
Three heads nodded with certainty. “We care!”
“Yeah! We wanna see!”
“Well…” I relit my smile, then yanked out the bag of ingredients. “We’re gonna make our own cupcakes!”
Given the decibel level of the excitement, you’d have thought I told them we were going to Disney Land.
I held up a hand. “But first, we need to clean up our breakfast mess. The energy seems off in here again, so I’ll break out my sage and get to work on that while you guys tackle the kitchen.”
Garrett wrinkled his nose. “Dad says the sage stinks.”
“Yeah, well, Dad’s not here, now is he?” I waggled my eyebrows and the kids giggled. They rinsed their breakfast dishes and put them in the dishwasher while I took care of the energy, then we reconvened in the kitchen, staring at the cupcake ingredients like they might bite us.
Garrett eyed me. “Have you ever made these before?”
“Nope. But I’ve never let something like that stop me. What’s the point if you only do the stuff you know how to do?”
“What if we mess up?” Charlie stared up at me with her big brown eyes and my heart melted.
“Then we’ll know not to do it that way the next time.” I pulled up the recipe on my phone and we got started.
Charlie and Connor helped me mix the batter while Garrett read the instructions. Working with three little people was indescribably messy. Flour made it to the counters we weren’t using and I had no idea how, but it didn’t matter because we had a blast. While the cupcakes baked, we tackled the buttercream icing. I let them choose the colors and never in the history of cupcaking had such vibrant decorations happened.
“That’s…something,” I said as Connor mixed green and yellow into a color that didn’t look the least bit appetizing.
“Thanks! I love it,” he replied with pride.
After the cupcakes cooled, we set to work decorating them. Sprinkles bounced off the table to the floor and frosting coated all three kids’ fingers. Looking mildly disgusted, Charlie shook her hand and a glop of pink icing plopped into Garrett’s hair. He immediately tried to brush it off, which only smeared it across his forehead. He stared at the pink streak on his hand, then wiped it down Charlie’s nose. Not wanting to be left out, Connor splotched icing onto his own face.
While I stared, wondering why he’d icing-bombed himself, a blob of frosting hit me in the side of the mouth. I turned to find a grinning Charlie, her eyes dancing with mischief. There was a moment of shocked silence followed by a handful of nervous giggles.
I wiped the smear from my face and dabbed it on her nose. “There. That’s better.”
I’d like to say we stopped there. I’m sure Jack would, too. Alas, we did not. Yelling and laughing with delight, the kids launched an offense, and I had no choice. I had to defend myself. At least, that would be my story when questioned later.
Bits of cake flew.
Icing launched through the air like guided missiles.
Garrett took an entire spatula of frosting and smeared it down my back.
“Amelia!” Charlie yelled as Connor tackled her to the ground. “Help me!”
I crumbled a naked cupcake into Connor’s hair, and he giggled, jumping up and readying himself for the attack.
“Quick, let’s take cover!” I hauled Charlie up from the floor. We dove behind the table as the boys chased after us, flinging more cake and frosting until we were out of ammo. And who figured that out? Me. The adult in the situation who was patting around an empty counter in search of more food to throw at children.
What in the world had gotten into me?
Laughter died as we took stock of the kitchen. The kids stared at the mess with open mouths, then turned their shocked expressions to me.
“Whoever has to clean this up is gonna be pretty upset with us.” I pretended to look around for the imaginary someone to clean the mess. “Oh, wait. That’s me.” I grimaced, then laughed.
“It’s okay, Amelia. We’ll help.” Garrett gave me his first real smile and it looked so much like his dad’s I wanted to hug him.
“Besides,” said Charlie, “we haven’t had that much fun since Mom died.” She blinked, then frowned as she stared at her brothers. The siblings had a moment of silent communication before they shrugged off her statement and we got to work. Once the kitchen was clean, I checked the time.
“Sh—” I caught the curse word before it left my lips “—oot! We are so gonna be late!”
I grabbed Charlie and brushed the cake crumbs from her shirt and hair. “We have to go but oh my goodness, you’re all so messy….” I started giggling and couldn’t stop. “I guess the best we can do is change and get the heck outta here.”
While the kids charged down the hall to their rooms, I rushed into the guest bathroom and stared at my reflection in the mirror over the sink, clutching the porcelain as I laughed. Three different colors of frosting smeared my t-shirt. Sprinkles stuck to my shorts. Cake dangled from my ponytail. Turning on the faucet, I brushed as much of the stuff from my hair as I could, then dampened a cloth and began scrubbing away at my clothes. The shirt was hopeless—and now wet, therefore see-through.
“Flippin’ flap!”
I couldn’t go out like this.
I considered borrowing a shirt from the kids, but even Garrett’s clothes would be too small.
After some serious hesitation, I went into the master bedroom and threw open Jack’s closet. This was a semi-creepy move, but I didn’t have a whole lot of options. I could show up to his place of business in a stained, wet, see-through t-shirt, or show up wearing something he might recognize as his. I clicked through the line of crisp work shirts until I found what I was looking for—an ancient sweatshirt buried in the back. Hoping he wouldn’t mind, I pulled it over my head and rushed into the living room. “Guys! We have to go!”
Charlie came out of her room with the ugliest mismatch of clothes I’d ever seen—different shades of pink and red clashed together. Connor had picked another shirt, but his pants still had frosting on them. And Garrett….