He burned up the road on his way and saw a bakery halfway. He bought two boxes of snacks. It was still not nightfall when he arrived home. He stepped out of the car in the glow of sunset and heard the laughter in the playroom on the second floor.
When Wayne pushed the door open, Anna was standing there, her hands covered by flour, and pointing to Tammy, who was excitedly jumping on the trampoline, “Come down, Tammy Gabriel. Cut it out! I’m going to make dinner. You can’t jump on it without my watch. You’ll fall down.”
“Matthew, you haven’t recovered from the injury yet. Don’t monkey around with Tammy.”
With one hand on the door, Wayne was astonished by the scene. Matthew had always been a quiet boy. But now he was rolling on the trampoline with Tammy. He was wearing a Spider-Man costume and made the Spider-Man iconic hand gesture once in a while. Did my son really break his arm?
With Anna’s warning, the two children looked at each other, stuck out their tone and finally got out of the trampoline quietly.
“That’s it. Don’t mess around. You can play after I finish cooking. Alright?”
Anna pointed to Tammy’s nose, “Take care of Matthew. Don’t play crazily with him. He hasn’t recovered yet. His arm is still in the cast.”
Tammy smiled broadly, “OK, mommy. I know. We won’t jump on the trampoline.” Anna finally turned around in satisfaction.
She didn’t see that there was a man at the door because she was still looking at the children from the corner of her eyes, and then she collided with him.
“Ouch!” Anna shouted, her forehead hitting a firm chest. She raised her head in pain and finally saw clearly who that man was. She took a few steps back in a fluster.
“Sorry. Sorry…” She saw that there were two white handprints on Wayne’s black shirt while flour was still falling from it.
Wayne stood there angrily. “Sorry.” Anna quickly walked to him, “Let me help you clean it.” She patted on his chest. The handprints were surely gone, but now the whole shirt was covered by flour. Wayne choked and coughed, covering his mouth, and pushing her away.
“Anna Gabriel, are you taking revenge on me? Ahem ahem…”
Anna gave a shake of her head, “No… Of course not. I was going to cook dinner. I was making a dough. How could I know that you were standing at the door?”
“So it is my fault?”
“You shouldn’t have stood there without even making a sound.” Anna whispered guiltily.
Face darkening, Wayne said in a deeper voice, “Anna Gabriel, have I been too friendly to you lately?”
“No. No. No.” Anna shook her hand and explained leisurely, “You see, I was making a dough because I wanted to make some snacks for your son. I got your shirt dirty also because I wanted to make some snacks for your son. Think about it. Which is more important, your shirt or your son?”
Wayne was speechless. He frowned and didn’t bother to retort her. He suddenly changed the topic, “I’ve got servants at home. Is it necessary for you to cook? I invited you here to play. Not cook. Now you may look happy. I guess later you will blame me for forcing you to work on the weekend.”
“What you make is definitely different from what the servants make.” Anna rolled her eyes and raised her eyebrows, “Believe it or not. If you can make some snacks for Matthew, he will be thrilled, even if they are not as delicious as the food the servants make.”
“Don’t bother. I’ve bought some.” Wayne showed her the dessert box in his hand. “It’s different from homemade food.” Anna suddenly thought of something, “Wait, are you free tonight?” Wayne looked at her and answered casually, “Yeah.”
“Great. Let’s go to the kitchen. I can teach you how to make a dough and cookies. Come on.”
Anna authoritatively pushed Wayne into the kitchen.
“You should spend more time with Matthew. Look how happy he was when he was playing with Tammy. Your servants taking care of him said that he had never been this happy before. That’s crazy.”
While Wayne was blaming himself again because of Anna’s words, Anna suddenly put an apron in his arms, “Put this on so that you won’t get flour on your clothes.”
His eyes twisted when he saw the pink apron. When he was about to say something, Anna suddenly urged him, “What are you waiting for? Go wash your hands. It’s five o’clock. The kids are starving.”
He somehow followed her orders, put on the apron, and washed his hands. Then he started to make a dough according to Anna’s instructions.
“Usually, we can make cookies in all kinds of shapes. Round, square, whatever. But kids don’t really care about the flavor. They pay more attention to the appearance than the taste of the food. Therefore, we can use a cookie mold or make some animals with our hands when making cookies.”
Anna tried to show him and extruded the dough on the baking paper.
“Look, now we have a little duck. Remember not to put too much dough on one cookie, because it will expand in the oven, and it will eventually look too fat.”
Anna was very serious when teaching Wayne. She stared at the baking paper, and soon there were all kinds of animals on it.
Wayne stood by her side and stared at her face, suddenly having a strange feeling.
He suddenly found she interesting, much more interesting than the women he met before.
She was not vain or highfalutin. She was excellent in work and in life. She was kind, brave, and straightforward. And she was patient with children.
“Uncle Wright, what do you think of marrying my mommy?” Tammy’s sentence that he took as a child’s babble suddenly struck him. His hand shook and suddenly extruded too much dough. A weird ugly thing appeared on the baking paper.
chocolate dough, I’m sure no one would like to eat a cookie that looks like poop.”
Wayne’s face froze. He looked at his work in embarrassment and put down the things in his hands.
“You can do it yourself.”
“Don’t be upset.” Anna raised her eyebrows and gloated over the thing he made,“ Come on, it’s not the end of the world. We can still save it.”
Then she picked out a tiny cranberry from the bag and put it on the poop-shaped cookie and used a toothpick to stretch one end of the cookie.
“Now it looks like a little snake.”
Wayne took a look at the “little snake” that she made. It lay lazily on the baking paper, with a cute cranberry eye that gave a glow and a long thin tail in the behind.
His eyes were first fixed on the cookie and then moved to Anna’s face. Her satisfied look somehow pleased him.
At dinner, Matthew was much happier than usual. His active attitude today surprised Wayne. It had always been a big problem to make Matthew eat. If no one fed him, he would rather stay hungry. Even if someone did, he would only eat a little. He looked thinner than other kids at the age of five.
“Matthew, can you eat by yourself?” Wayne couldn’t help but ask.
“Of course, he can. He’s five years old.” Anna said in an exaggerating tone, “Matthew can do a lot of things, can’t he?”
Matthew nodded and gave Wayne a scornful look as if he had been hiding his abilities from Wayne.
Both angry and amused at Matthew’s look, he could do nothing but put more food on Matthew’s plate and said gently, “It’s my fault not to pay enough attention to you. Have some more food.”
After the meal, Anna wanted to leave since it was getting late, but Tammy wouldn’t go and kept saying that she wanted to play video games together.
There was a big screen TV in Wayne’s living room, and there was a tank game in it. They could play the game together, each one holding a game pad.
Five minutes into the first round, Wayne had occupied the territory of other three. Game was over.
Anna was frustrated, “This is not fair. This is your TV. You must have played for a lot of times before. Not fair.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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