Chapter Thirty-One

Sam

 

I thought I would miss Kate so much I wouldn’t be able to focus, but life wouldn’t let me dwell on her. Between work and the kids, my hands and my mind were full.

Jordan woke with a snotty nose Friday and I had to keep him home from daycare and find a sitter. It meant dropping Candace off, then working in my office until the sitter arrived, but she couldn’t stay until my normal quitting time on short notice, so I could only put a half day in at work and brought the rest home.

The neighbor dropped Candace off.

Which meant I didn’t know what time it was until Kate texted me.

6:30PM. Shit. I was half an hour late for our “date”.

I fired off an explanation and told her we’d talk tomorrow. She replied with okay.

I took the interruption to give Jordan another dose of medicine, checked the humidifier still had plenty of water, then dove back into work.

Twenty minutes later, a knock on the front door made me jump out of my seat. Setting my reading glasses aside, I went to see who the hell would be here now.

“Sam Cord?” a young man asked.

“Yeah.”

“This is for you.” He held up a takeout bag.

“I didn’t order anything.”

He said, “It was called in by a…Kate Carson. Have a good night.” The GrubHub kid hurried down the drive to his car.

I unknotted the plastic bag and the unmistakable aroma of Thai food hit my senses.

“Daddy, what is it?”

“Takeout.” I shut the front door.

“Yay, dinner!”

I expected only an order for me, but Kate included a small carton of a mild rice dish, too. I couldn’t love that woman much more than I did right now.

“Daddy…” Candace hopped next to the high chair.

“Sorry.” I put her in the chair and buckled her in. “This one is for you.” I placed the Styrofoam bowl on the tray along with a kid-size fork.

“Where’s Jordan?” She dug into the rice.

“He doesn’t feel well today, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.”

I sat on a bar stool, ate a bite of comfort-food curry, and finally felt like this cluster-fuck of a day was turning around, all thanks to my thoughtful girlfriend two-thousand miles away.

I needed to text her, but I had a rule of no phones during meals. Figured if I started early, the kids would respect it by the time they had their own devices, but it made me antsy now.

Candace told me about her day at preschool and I did my best to be attentive. Then it was bath time, preventative medicine time, teeth brushing time, and story time before I could finally return to my office and message Kate.

You’re welcome, she replied.

You’re amazing.

It wasn’t difficult lol. Just pull up a city or zip code in the app, select a restaurant, and place the order. Only seems like magic. She included a winking smiley.

Well, my stomach is grateful for your food-order-fu. I’m sorry about tonight.

Shit happens.

On top of Jordan getting sick, a client balked on a contract and insists on renegotiating, so I had the other party’s lawyer up my ass and I’ve been putting out fires all day.

Aww. That happen often?

Thankfully, no, but this client is a picky bastard and causes drama once or twice a year.

Which happened to be today.

Yep. How was your day? I asked her.

I didn’t want to make this conversation all about me.

Mentally taxing, she typed. Our fiscal year ends with January, so the accounting dept. is under a lot of pressure to deliver reports on time. Plus taxes.

I wished I could see her. I missed talking in person after five days in a row.

Can we video chat?

Uh, yeah.

I called her with FaceTime. Three rings… “Hey, gorgeous.”

I recognized her headboard behind her.

“Hey.”

“What’s wrong?” There was a lot of weight in that hey.

“Just work stress.” She brushed her hand through her loose hair, her eyes flicking away from the camera.

“You can vent to me, you know.”

Kate nodded. “So texting wasn’t enough, huh?”

“We said we’d live call date nights.”

“Which you missed.”

“I was late, there’s a difference.”

“You forgot, but it’s okay. This time.”

“Thanks.”

Her mask was up again, but after the day I had, I’d rather keep things light than dig into whatever was bothering her. We could address it tomorrow.

She asked about the books on my shelves, so I gave her a tour of my library.

Then she was tired, so we signed off for the night.