“Have I told you yet that you have the most beautiful smile when you’re smug?”
Pat’s compliment caught her completely by surprise, and her streamlined food preparation came to a sloppy splat on the linoleum. She glared down at the offending piece of would-be French toast.
“Dammit,” she muttered. With an exasperated sigh, she bent down and picked up the egg-coated bread and tossed it in the garbage can. “Don’t even think about laughing, Pat, or the rest of your breakfast will join it.”
By the look on his face, she could tell he wasn’t fighting to contain a chuckle, but he was watching her with a kind of melancholy amusement. He was teetering on the knife-edge between moving forward and falling back, and Aeli searched for something that would give him a little nudge in the right direction
