One Night With Pops

Chapter One

It’s seven o’clock on a Friday morning; my six-, and seven-year-old sons want pancakes with syrup for breakfast. My computer programmer husband, Dave, works from home, and I’m a stay-at-home mom but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a job to do either.

I cook, I clean, I do the laundry for two households. Yes, I said two. Our house, and the house next door where Dave’s father, Roger lives. He’s a forty-five-year-old ex-serviceman who hated retirement so much, he set up his own garage here in town. He's not your typical grandpa by any means, but he does help out with the kids, and I help take care of his house. I even prepare his lunch for work and cook dinner for when he gets home. He often jokes that I have two husbands to take care of and says it’s like having a wife but without the sex. I wouldn’t mind having two spouses if it meant at least one of them would put out. Dave is under so much pressure from work, he barely notices I’m home, and Roger is busy banging anything with a pulse. I’m not bitter. I’m just sexually deprived. But hey, at least I have a family. We're still young at twenty-seven. Dave and I are just going through a dry patch. It won’t last forever. We got married while we were still at college, and timed it right before Levi popped into the world.

“Mom, make dinosaur pancakes,” Leo, my youngest, says.

“Make mine into a rocket ship,” Levi, my eldest, adds.

I drizzle some oil around the pan and get it nice and hot. “Okay … one dinosaur and a rocket ship coming up,” I reply, as I prepare to wow my children with my awesome pancake skills.

“Hey, something smells good in here,” Dave says as he enters the kitchen.

He leans in to sniff my neck and notices I’m wearing the perfume he bought me for our seventh wedding anniversary last week. I know he’s not referring to the pancakes as he grabs my butt and kisses my cheek. I grin as I work, then flip each pancake over with a spatula.

“Oh, Mom,” Leo protests. “You’re supposed to toss it like this,” he says, mimicking a pancake flipping motion with an invisible frying pan.

Dave chuckles. “Look up there, buddy,” he says, pointing to a giant grease stain on the ceiling. “That’s what happened the last time your momma tried to flip pancakes.”

I swat my husband playfully and return to the task in hand. It’s nice when our mornings start like this. He’s usually so busy with work, we hardly ever see him despite him being home all the time. Whenever his study door is closed, it’s a sign that Daddy is working and doesn’t want to be disturbed.

“I’ll pour you a cup of coffee,” Dave offers, kissing my cheek.

“Thanks, love,” I reply, admiring my husband as he moves around the kitchen.

He’s gained a little weight since he started working from home and I know he’s conscious of it. It doesn’t help that he keeps a drawer full of candy in his desk and survives on energy drinks all day long. I buy him healthy snacks, but he complains they taste of cardboard. He won’t eat fruit and vegetables, so how can I win? I work hard to take care of everyone. I’m doing the best that I can.

The backdoor handle turns and in walks Pops in all his tattooed glory. My god, the guy knows how to make an entrance. He swaggers in with his mechanic overalls on and his steel-toe-capped boots that stomp across the linoleum as he walks. He’s a real grease monkey, with dark hair that naturally slicks back as he runs his fingers through it, and a rough and rugged appearance that gets all the women’s panties wet. His three-day-old stubble shadows his jawline, and he looks like a walking wet dream rather than my sons' fun-loving grandpa. I shouldn’t be thinking about him the way I do, but I’m a red-blooded female with eyes. The guy could seduce a nun to sin. He would have her on her back in no time.