Curious, Orlando smirked as he watched her plate the pancakes and scorched sausages. He wanted to ask what things because it sure as hell wasn’t this, but he nodded instead. “Oh?”
“Yeah.” She turned to him wide-eyed and smiled. “I bake stuff with my brother sometimes.” The smile waned a little as she seemed to ponder something, and her teeth sank into her bottom lip again. “Course even he’s better at it than me, and I usually just assist, but I’ve made cookies on my own before, and they’re not always burnt on the bottom either.”
Orlando chuckled as she walked the plates over to the dining room. “Well, you can’t be good at everything, and we’ve already established you’re awesome with the baby. Speaking of . . .” He glanced in the direction of his bedroom. “Is he down for a nap?”
“Yeah, we were at the park a little longer than usual, and I guess it wore him out.” She walked back into the kitchen and came back holding a carton of orange juice and two glasses. “It’s what threw my cooking off a little. I had to go put him down when he started getting fussy and forgot to lower the flame.” Trying his best not to laugh as he glanced down at his plate, Orlando braced himself. “Oh, almost forgot.” She rushed back into the kitchen as Orlando poured the juice. She came back with the syrup. “Can’t have hotcakes without syrup.”
“Nope, you can’t.” He gulped as he poured the syrup over his pathetic-looking pancakes. She watched him anxiously as he brought the piece he speared with his fork to his mouth. He chewed slowly, trying not to make a face. “It’s a . . .” He pointed at the pancake on his plate. “It’s a little raw in the middle still.”
“Is it?” she said, looking noticeably disappointed. “You don’t have to eat it, Orlando.”
“No, no.” He shook his head, determined to finish the damn plate now. “Some parts are cooked all the way.” He smiled as he speared a black sausage and brought it to his mouth, smiling even bigger as he chewed it. “Nice and crispy.” The grateful and very sweet smile alone was worth the sand-like texture floating around in his mouth. They got off the subject of her food, as she told him about her morning with the baby.
“I need to get him sunhats,” she said as she picked away at her pancakes, looking for cooked parts. “It’s such a beautiful day today and I like him getting sun, but his skin is so fair and delicate for direct sun. We ended up under a tree today because, even though I slathered him with baby sunblock, he still started to blotch.”
Watching her as she picked away at her pancakes, Orlando was back to wondering if this was the key to the inexplicable lure he felt to her. He’d thought it was her eyes before, but even this sexually innocuous comment had him nearly hard. That she’d be that genuinely uncompromising and concerned about his boy’s safety after less than of week of getting acquainted with them was just another one of the things he found so endearing about her. It felt as genuine as when she spoke so affectionately of her siblings. “Tell you what,” he said, finishing the last of the few cooked through pieces of pancake on his plate. “When he wakes up, since you said you had nothing else going on today, you wanna hit the swap meet? I’m sure they have a ton of baby clothes and sunhats there. You’re probably better than me at picking out that sort of stuff.”
Her bright eyes widened, making Orlando smile instantly. “We could do that, and they have some good food there too.” Her smile waned a bit as she glanced down at her plate. Unlike Orlando, who’d braved the charred sausage, she hadn’t even touched the two on her plate and most of her pancakes were still there as well. “I mean, by then, we’ll be hungry again, right?”
“Yep,” Orlando nodded. “And I did promise you lunch.”
She reached for his plate, smiling even bigger. “You’re done, yes?”
Orlando nodded, feeling too damn excited about the prospect of spending yet another day with her. He inhaled deeply, reminding himself she was engaged and any time he spent with her was all for the sake of the baby. Nothing more. But hot damn if his head wasn’t already working on what to do or say next to be indulged with another one of those bright and excited wide-eyed smiles.
Danica
After almost two weeks of working at Bad Boys and watching the baby, Danica had managed not to blow her cover. But she’d been close when Orlando had first expressed his annoyance about having missed out on the baby’s birth and first few weeks. She’d been too close to blurting out how sorry she was. It was only her fear of being thrown out on her ass and never seeing the baby again that kept her from doing so. Danica still didn’t understand it. Why it was so hard to lie to him. Lying about still being in a relationship was different. It felt harmless and necessary. She’d be damned if she’d get her time with the baby taken away because of an insecure girlfriend. It wasn’t as if her fake relationship adversely affected Orlando or her two new jobs. Other than it assured Danica that his girlfriend wouldn’t cause any trouble for her, there wasn’t any fear of getting in trouble for the white lie. Not like the fear of the other two much bigger things she was lying about by omission coming to light. Not since Nine had joked about her being a felon had that subject been raised, and her gut balled up at the thought of it ever coming up again, especially if was Orlando doing the asking.
After just two weeks around him, Danica had inevitably developed a major crush on the guy. She should’ve known she would. How could she not? He was so incredibly hot. He had this respectable and commanding way about him when it came to running the shop, but it was never in a domineering way. On top of it all, Danica now knew firsthand how amazingly sweet he could be. Almost from day one, aside from the angst of having such huge secrets she’d yet to spill, she’d been amazed at how easy it was to talk to Orlando. Already it felt like she’d known him for way longer than the relatively short amount of time she actually had. They’d spent countless hours discussing mostly baby-related topics, but they’d also gotten to know each other a little better each time as he told her about his tight relationship with Nine and Beast.
Despite the embarrassment of her epic fails at cooking at his place—more than once now—she’d been grateful for the sweet way he tried to act like the outcome wasn’t as bad as she knew it was. He’d referred to her second attempt of making something as simple as fideo “interesting.” She was almost grateful for Felicia now, because she could already tell falling for a guy like Orlando would be too easy and that was a big no-no. But it was the only reason she could think of why she couldn’t blatantly lie to him. Like with Felicia, telling him about her plans with Ted didn’t feel so blatant. It’d all been true at one point, and since it really wasn’t any of his business like the other stuff was, there was no reason to feel guilty about doing so. There was just something so mesmerizing about those penetrating eyes when he spoke to her. She found herself practically holding her breath sometimes when his eyes searched hers, especially when he touched on an unnerving subject.
“Danica?”
She glanced up as hearing her name broke her out of her thoughts. It took her a moment to recognize him, but then her jaw dropped. “Oh my God.” Instantly on her feet, she rushed around the counter. She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t even noticed anyone walk into the lobby. “How are you? It’s been so long.”