Page 38 of The Write Choice

I toss some sauce, cheese, and meat onto a pizza while helping the kids. It turns out okay. But Katie, of course, makes a fucking masterpiece. She artfully combines different colors of cheese and cuts pepperoni pieces into just the right shapes to create a pizza that looks strikingly like my face, complete with green pepper eyes and a dark, rust-colored beard.

When it comes out of the oven, it looks so much like me that the kids dissolve into fits of giggles on the tile floor, and everyone wants a piece of it. I hold the pizza cutter just above the pizza, ready to cut, when Katie jumps in.

“It’s my pizza! Let me cut it.” She grabs the cutter from my hands, and a slight jolt of electricity passes between us as our fingers touch. I think she feels it too, because her cheeks turn a perfect shade of pink.

She’s smiling a wide, easy smile I haven’t seen in a long time as she goes to cut the pizza. It’s such a beautiful sight. But as soon as I file it away in my brain to bring back out later, it’s replaced by a wicked grin. She cackles as she slices into the pizza.

“You know,” she raises her eyes to mine, the blue in them glinting. “I didn’t think slicing into your face would be so enjoyable, yet here we are.”

I can tell from her tone she’s teasing, but with Katie, there’s always some truth behind it. I raise an eyebrow. “Did you create Pizza Brandon just to cut it up?”

“No.” She adopts an innocent expression. “But I can’t help it if the end result is deeply satisfying.” Her voice drops a register as she ends that sentence, and it doesn’t matter that she’s talking about cutting up my pizza face. I still go hard at her tone.

I remind myself that the kids are in the room and grab a slice of my beard. I shove as much of it into my mouth as I can, never breaking eye contact with her. The kids start to giggle again.

“Daddy ate his face,” Christine laughs.

“Ewww,” Mason groans.

“It’s delicious,” I insist around my mouthful, which sets everyone off into more laughter.

The kids insist on eating “Daddy’s face,” so we load up plates and sit at the island with all the pizzas of varying levels of success in the middle. We end up polishing off my face pizza, then moving to the one I threw together. We pack Mason’s away for Katie or me to eat later, and we toss Christine’s right in the garbage when she’s not looking.

What I thought was going to be a disaster of an evening turned out beautifully. Because of Katie.

I don’t know how she does it. Actually, yes, I do. She’s fucking brilliant, that’s how. She’s a stunning woman, an amazing mother, and a talented artist. She takes everything I try to do and makes it better. She makes me better.

After we clean up, I can tell Katie wants to go back to her studio. When we first met, she’d get this look about her when she wanted to paint something. Her fingers would start to tap the nearest surface ever so slightly, and her eyes would glass over. She had that look a few times during dinner, and now she’s looking toward her studio door longingly.

I watch her for a few seconds and offer quietly, “I got baths and bedtime. Go paint.”

She slowly shifts her gaze to meet mine. I can’t read her expression, but she’s so still. After a moment, she nods once and makes her way into her room, shutting the door behind her.

The rest of my night is filled with wrangling Christine into and out of the tub, attempting to persuade—then finally ordering—Mason to take a shower, and reading probably fifteen bedtime stories between the two kids. By the time I’m finished, I’m exhausted and happy the way you are after doing something gratifying.

I head downstairs. Katie’s studio door is still closed. I grab a slice of Mason’s green pepper pizza and take Daniel’s book that I still haven’t finished off the side table before heading down to the basement to read in bed.

The guest room is sparse. There’s only a queen-sized bed and a dresser in the corner. I hadn’t wanted to furnish it too much because I had hoped I wouldn’t be in here for very long.

I strip down to my boxers and climb under the covers. I prop up the pillows behind me and settle in to read, feeling like a complete asshole that I still haven’t finished this book. Literary fiction just isn’t my thing. Still, I try.

My eyelids are starting to droop after about an hour of reading, when I’m suddenly startled to attention as Katie opens the door.

“Hi,” she says tentatively. She stands in the doorway, her left thumb twitching over her wedding band, which glimmers in the dim light of the room.

“Hi.”

“Can I come in?”

Fuck yes, she can come in. I sit up straighter and nod. She fully enters the room, and I can see she’s wearing an oversized t-shirt that comes to about mid-thigh and hangs off her shoulder. Her hair is down and brushes over her shoulders. There’s a smudge of red paint on her left cheekbone that she must have missed when cleaning up.

As her eyes trail over my bare chest, they snag on the tattoo over my heart—K, M, and C. It’s simple, but I know she loves this design. Back when things were easier between us, she used to trace her delicate fingers over the lines or press her warm hand over it.

How long has it been since she’s seen any part of me naked? Too long, that’s for sure.

She hums, and it’s an uncertain sound. I, on the other hand, have never been more sure that I want someone near me.

“What’s up?” I ask.