“You’re already really good at that,” she murmured against his lips as she pecked.
“Want to see what else I’m really good at?” He asked her. She nodded then held onto his head when he gripped her waist and lifted her.
“Ack!” She laughed as she straightened. “You are a lot stronger than you look!”
“I do a lot of yoga and I go mountain climbing whenever I can get away for a few days.”
“You really are a nature boy,” she noted, offering him a hand up. He took it and Silas shrugged once he was on his feet.
“I don’t mind living in the city because I like people. But I would have moved down south and lived on the beach if I could stand being that far from my sister and my niece.”
“You’re an uncle?” Daphne asked, making Silas cheer excitedly.
“I was hoping you’d ask!” He grabbed her wine and her wrist and towed her to the stool at the kitchen counter. “How about I top this off and you can look at my scrapbook while I make us dinner?” Silas didn’t wait. He deposited her on the stool, then raced around the counter to refill her jam jar from the bottle in the fridge. Silas jogged back to the living room and swiped the scrapbook of the bookshelf, making Daphne giggle as he presented it to her with a dramatic bow. “She’s my life,” he said simply.
“Ashley & Me,” Daphne read and smiled at the flowers and cartoon versions of himself and Ashley he’d drawn on the cover. “This is precious.”
“I didn’t see myself having time to have my own kids so I decided I’d spoil Ashley as much as I could. But she ended up being my best friend, after my sister, Liz.”
“Really?” Daphne sounded surprised but Silas held up his hands. She’d get it as soon as she saw how precious Ashley was.
“I’m just getting a handle on my doctoral thesis and one of the downsides of being a marine biologist is that the commute can get pretty extreme and you can’t really take your kid to work because it’s the ocean.”
“Unless you’re a Cousteau,” Daphne pointed out.
“Ashley loves the ocean and says she wants to be a marine biologist like me,” Silas boasted and gestured at the book. “Prepare to be disgusted at how adorable she is,” he warned as he backed away.
“You’re already giving me a sugar rush,” she said then shooed him off. Daphne took a large gulp from her wine and flipped the cover open. Silas headed around the narrow strip of wall and smiled when she whimpered. He didn’t need to look to know why. The first page was a huge picture of Silas holding a newborn Ashley.
“Liz was dating this really cool teacher named Ted,” Silas began as he opened the fridge and began gathering the produce for their noodle salad. “He talked about proposing and them getting a place together but he freaked out when Liz got pregnant.” Silas left the herbs, scallions, chilis, and lettuce on the counter.
“Why?” Daphne chuckled so Silas leaned and stretched his neck to get a look. He and Ashley were dressed like clownfish for Halloween and Silas had turned her stroller into an anemone. Silas sighed heavily as he got a pot from the rack over the stove and went to fill it with water.
“It turned out, Ted was dating three other women. Two were students’ mothers.”
“Motherfucker,” Daphne growled and Silas hummed in agreement.
“Unfortunately. Liz was devastated at the time but she’s doing great now. She’s got a candle shop not too far from here but she does most of her sales through Etsy.”
“That’s wonderful. And you all look so happy,” Daphne said. Her eyes glittered as she smiled at Silas, making him feel like he was fifteen-years-oldandeight-feet tall.
“Yeah. That’s why I understand why you have to put your career and your sister first. I already have everything, I’ve just been looking for someone… Just for me. If that makes sense,” he said as he collected sauces and pastes from his sad excuse for a pantry. The shelves were about as wide as his shoulders and precariously packed, despite his attempts at organization and space-saving. He looked back at Daphne and she was gulping the last of her wine.
“Another round, please,” she asked. There was a nervous rise to it, making Silas wary. He gave her an expectant look and waited for Daphne to explain. “It makes a lot of sense,” she muttered and held out the jar. “I don’t want to change everything so I can fit into someone else’s life. And I like my life pretty much the way it is. I just wish someone was there when I came home so I didn’t have to talk to myself all the time.” She blew the hair out of her face with a hard sigh.
“Exactly.” Silas opened the fridge and bent at the waist to grab the bottle and confirmed that two more were chilling. “I want to come home after a long day of research and making lattes for impatient people and just…” Silas stared over Daphne’s shoulder and imagined his perfect evening. He realized this was it and laughed softly as he went back to work. “I want to come home and bury my face in her pussy then cook her dinner while we vent about our day.”
“It sounds like we joined the club for the same reasons,” she said and he nodded.
“I want to have a sex life and I love facesitting but dating is so—”
“Messy,”she finished.
“Amen,” Silas said, then realized he hadn’t poured himself any wine. He added the vermicelli noodles to the boiling water and got himself a jar from the cabinet by the fridge. He didn’t splurge on glasses and stemware because jars were practically free with the purchase of most groceries. He was a student and a barista so he had to be frugal but he was also an environmentalist so he recycled whatever he could.
Silas filled his jar with what was left of the bottle then went about prepping the vegetables and making the dressing for their salad. They talked while he worked—mostly about Liz and Ashley because Daphne had so many questions—then flirted as they ate at the counter.
He ordered her to snoop around and entertain herself while he cleaned the kitchen but she entertained him. Daphne took a quick tour of his bedroom and bathroom before returning to the living room and discovering the bluetooth speaker on the coffee table. She synced it to her phone so she could sing to Silas’s babies while she danced and investigated the aquariums. She was Silas’s dream come true in nothing but a black camisole and panties.