My feet silent on the carpeting, I headed to the living room through it, the murmurs becoming more distinct, but I couldn’t hear much of anything.

Until I hit the doorway of the kitchen. I heard them. I saw them.

And my knees went weak.

Ethan was in his jammies at the table, hair a mess, shoveling waffles in his mouth.

Merry was at the counter, jeans on, shirt on but untucked, feet bare, standing next to the waffle iron but taking a sip off coffee, his mouth curled up, his eyes on my boy.

Oh yeah. Shit.

Warm and squishy.

“So I was all, ‘kiss my butt,’ and they were all, ‘whatever,’” Ethan was saying.

I had no idea what he was talking about, but whatever it was, Merry found it amusing.

I liked this. I liked Merry making my kid waffles. I liked the fact he could do that at all, considering I’d paid three bucks for that waffle iron and it’d only worked once, so I was glad he’d fixed it. And I liked my kid having a guy in the house to babble guy shit to, getting up early to do it on a Saturday morning.

I leaned against the jamb and instantly got two pairs of eyes, my brown ones in my son’s face and Merry’s blue ones in his beautiful face.

“Mom! Cool! You’re up!” Ethan cried. “Waffle time!”

“Seems you started without me,” I noted.

Ethan smiled. “I was hungry.”

I looked to Merry. “How many has he had so far?”

Merry was still grinning but now doing it at me. “Three.”

“I’m a growin’ boy,” Ethan decreed.

“You’re definitely that considering I’m soon going to have to sell my plasma in order to keep you in Oreos,” I returned.

“I’ll sell mine too so we can double up on America’s finest cookie,” Ethan offered.

I shook my head, doing it smiling, and moved into the kitchen. I went straight to my son and didn’t push my luck with gooey. I just reached out and shoved his head to the side, but I did it tousling his hair just a little bit, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

He noticed and I knew this when he muttered, “You’re a goof, Mom.”

“Whatever,” I muttered back and moved to Merry.

He watched me and I watched him, thinking he looked right at home in Janis Joplin’s kitchen.

I got close, put a hand to his abs, and lifted up to kiss his jaw.

“Mornin’, baby,” he said quietly.

I pulled back my head but stayed close, looking him in the eye, trying to decide if him making my son waffles in my kitchen was a better “mornin’” than the one he’d given me the day before.

It was an impossible decision. I was just going to have to equally enjoy all the boons he was giving me.

I didn’t suspect this would be hard.

“Mornin’,” I replied.

“Want waffles?” he asked.

“Want coffee,” I answered, shifting away. “After teeth brushing,” I went on. “Then waffles after coffee,” I finished, wandering out of the room.