“Okay, looks like Rudolph only has three legs,” Adam pointed out, getting several giggles in reply. “How about we fix that?”
Two of the kids took some tissue paper and scrunched it into tiny little balls to stick to the picture of Rudolph. The children were making Christmas decorations for the school party. Each class was working on a picture to hang in the gym, as well as a few other bits and pieces.
“How are the snowflakes coming along?” he asked, checking on a different table.
“Can I put glitter on mine?” Debbie asked.
Adam looked at the small girl with her blonde pigtails. “I don’t see why not, but concentrate on cutting them out first. We’ll add the sparkles later.”
“Okay, Mr Roberts.”
“Mr Roberts!”
Adam glanced over at the boy who’d shouted.
“Yes, Jack?”
“Emily says my paper chain is lame.”
Adam forced his face to stay straight. Honestly, all paper chains were kind of lame, and Jack’s was particularly bad, but it was his sacred duty as a teacher to lie to these kids and hope his pants didn’t catch on fire.
“Your paper chain is not lame,” he fibbed. “And Emily? Remember how we speak to our classmates.”
“Sorry, Mr Roberts.” Emily looked down at her desk.
“Well, that’s good, but I’m not the one you were being mean to, am I?”
“Sorry, Jack.”
“Keep up the excellent work.” Adam walked away to check on other kids making pompom snowballs.
“Emmett, are you having trouble?” he asked.
The kid shrugged. “I’m doing it wrong.”
The little girl beside him, Xia, leaned over to look. “You need to tie this bit here,” she said. “Do it really tight. Here, I’ll show you.” She lifted up her own ‘snowball’ and demonstrated. “See?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Emmett frowned in concentration as he copied what he’d been shown. A moment later, he held up a fuzzy snowball.
“Well done, Emmett,” Adam said. “And thank you, Xia, for helping.”
“Thanks, Xia.” Emmett grinned at the little girl.
Adam left them in peace, smiling to himself. Looked like Emmett was finally making a friend.
“Mr Roberts! George stuck his fingers together!”
The entire classroom went quiet, each kid riveted to the new drama enfolding.
“Let me see.” Adam inspected the kid’s fingers and led him to the sink to clean off the sticky paste. It dissolved easily as it hadn’t dried yet. Besides, this was the exact reason they never used strong glue. This wasn’t Adam’s first finger separation. He mentally rolled his eyes. No, his first time had been his brother Kyle, and the second time had been his brother Frankie. Their sister, Dana, had been smart enough to never glue her fingers together.
Disaster staved off once more, Adam sneaked a glance at Emmett. The boy was chatting with Xia and another two kids. Adam smiled. He’d have to remember to tell Hope about this. He knew she was worried about Emmett.
Tonight, Hope and the kids were having dinner at Adam’s parents’ house, and everyone had been warned within an inch of their lives not to talk about the mate thing. Not yet. Still, Adam was a little apprehensive. His family were good people, and he knew they’d welcome Hope and the kids. He also knew they understood why they couldn’t mention Hope was his mate. Unfortunately, he was also aware that his brothers were prone to moments of exceptional stupidity, and the chances of them accidentally saying something were high. Dana, his intelligent sibling, had promised to stay nearby and head off any accidental slips, and Ethan had been roped in to help. Adam’s parents would, too. So, they had six adults to control two overgrown kids. Hopefully, that would be enough.
He glanced at Emmett again and found the boy actually laughing.
Looked like the kid was beginning to heal.
Two down and one to go.
***
Hope nibbled at her lip as she waited for the door to open. For the millionth time, she smoothed down her hair.
“Remember, kids. Best behaviour tonight.”
“Why are we here?” Olivia asked. “Isn’t it weird to have dinner with Emmett’s teacher’s family?”
“No, it’s not weird.” Hope glanced at her. “Adam is a friend, and he knows we don’t know many people in town. They are being nice, so be nice back.”
“Whatever.”
If ever there was a word Hope would happily remove from the English language, it was ‘whatever’. She’d had it muttered at her far too often in the last few months.
The door swung open and Adam let them in.
“Just hang your coats up and come on in.”
Hope took off her coat and helped Bella with hers. As she walked into the living room, she spotted Dana and gave her a little wave.
“Everyone,” Adam said. “This is Hope, Olivia, Emmett, and Bella.”
A murmur of hellos answered that.
“You know Dana,” Adam said. “And that’s her mate, Ethan, sitting beside her. These are my parents.” He indicated the older couple. “And these two idiots are my brothers, Kyle and Frankie.”
“Welcome,” Mrs Roberts said, stepping forward. “Dinner is almost ready. I hope you like chicken.”
“I do, thank you.” Hope smiled at her. “And thanks for having us.”
“Oh, we’re just happy to meet Adam’s… friend.” Mrs Roberts gave her an apologetic look at the near-slip.
“Are you a big weindeer too?” Bella asked, blinking up at her.
Mrs Roberts seemed confused for a moment.
“Bella has seen my moose form,” Adam explained. “She thinks I’m a big reindeer.”
Mrs Roberts chuckled. “Then yes, sweetheart. We’re all big reindeer, apart from Ethan over there. He’s a wolf.”
Bella grinned. “Big doggie!”
Ethan looked appalled, but everyone else laughed.
“Oh, you are adorable.” Mrs Roberts beamed at her. “Well, come on. Let’s get seated, and I’ll dish up dinner.”
They all trooped into the dining room and squeezed themselves around the table.
“I think we’re going to need a bigger table,” Mrs Roberts said.
Hope found herself sitting with Bella on one side and Adam on the other. Emmett and Olivia sat across from her.
“So, Hope, how is the bakery working out?” Dana asked, as Mrs Roberts started dishing out plates of food.
“Worried about the competition?” Frankie asked, stealing a piece of chicken from Kyle’s plate.
“No, of course not.” Dana slapped away Ethan’s hand when he attempted to sneak a roast potato from her plate. “Too slow, babe.”
“The bakery is fine,” Hope answered, a little confused as she spotted Kyle lean over and grab a potato from Ethan while Ethan tried, unsuccessfully, to steal food from Dana. “The people are nice and they’ve been very helpful.”
Adam sighed. “I did warn you about that. We’re a bit… uh… competitive with food.”
Hope felt her eyes grow wide as Kyle only narrowly avoided being stabbed with Frankie’s fork. Dana leaned over the table and stole food from Frankie while he was busy laughing at Kyle. Meanwhile, Adam had filched a roast potato from Dana and slipped it onto Hope’s plate.
Adam had mentioned his family stealing each other’s food, but Hope had thought he was joking.
Glancing across the table, she spotted Emmett’s mouth hanging open as he watched the shenanigans. Even Olivia was staring.
“What… uh… what?” Hope gaped at Adam, unable to find the words to ask what was happening.
“This is actually fairly tame,” he told her.
“This is normal?”
“Of course it’s not normal.” Adam rolled his eyes. “But it’s normal for us.” He shrugged. “You should have seen the Great Pizza Battle of 2012.”
“Or the War of the Pancakes,” Frankie said around a mouthful of dinner. “That was in 2011.”
“I quite liked the Noodle Skirmish of 2015,” Kyle added, sneaking a couple of carrots from his father’s plate.
“Yeah, that one was messy.” Dana winced. “And I think it’s best we forget the Soup Scrimmage of 2016.”
For a minute, there was silence.
“I was always rather fond of the Muffin Melee of 2019,” Adam said.
Frankie snorted. “That’s because you ate all the muffins.”
“You snooze, you lose.” Adam swatted away Dana’s hand. “You were all so busy fighting that you lost track of the prize.”
Dana managed to swipe some carrots from Ethan’s plate and grinned cheekily at him.
By now, Bella was giggling hysterically as she watched the Roberts family pilfer food from each other’s plates.
“Eat up, sweetheart,” Mrs Roberts urged. “Nobody will steal from you.”
Bella glanced up at Hope, and then blatantly stole a pea from Hope’s plate.
“You’ll fit right in, kid,” Ethan told her.
Hope flushed. If things went well with Adam, then this would be her family, too. The kids’ family. And it was clear that they would fit in.
“I told you it would be fine,” Adam murmured. “My mum’s already besotted with the kids.”
Emmett was giggling now too as he swiped a potato from Olivia’s plate.
“Hey!” Olivia mock scowled at him, leaned over and ruffled his hair… while stealing the potato back. She bit into it and grinned at her little brother.
“You don’t do this when you eat out, right?” Hope asked.
Adam snorted. “We don’t eat out together.”
“Not since The Incident of 2018,” Frankie said solemnly.
Again, silence fell.
“But we don’t talk about that,” Mrs Roberts said firmly. “Do we, dear?”
Mr Roberts merely grunted and shovelled a forkful of peas into his mouth.
“He’s not much of a talker,” Adam whispered. “Don’t take it personally.”
The dinner continued in the same way. Polite conversation interspersed with food stealing, hand-slapping, and giggling from the kids. All of them were laughing by the time dinner came to an end.
They moved to the living room, and Bella immediately climbed onto Mr Roberts’ lap and snuggled in.
“Bella!” Hope moved to take her.
“She’s fine,” Mr Roberts said, his tone a little gruff.
“If you’re sure…”
A grunt.
Over by the window, Emmett was playing Snap with Mrs Roberts. Olivia was chatting with Frankie. Hope’s jaw dropped. The girl was actually speaking. No sighing, no grunting, no ‘whatevers’… simply chattering away like a normal teenage girl. From what Hope could hear, they were discussing classic horror films.
“You okay?” Adam asked.
“Yeah.” Hope let out a shaky breath. “I’m good. I just wasn’t expecting… this.”
Adam snorted. “Nobody expects the Roberts family.”
“I like them,” she murmured. “All of them. And the kids seem happy.”
“Well, that’s lucky then,” Adam told her. “Because I’m not planning on going anywhere, and my family will always be around.” He paused. “Even when I’d rather they weren’t. They are quite hard to shake off.”
“I don’t want to shake them off.”
“And what about me?”
Hope looked up at him. “I definitely want to keep you, Adam Roberts.”