"Fair enough. If you're happy, then I'm happy. Let's go burn a cow!"

With that, we headed out to the patio.

A couple of weeks went by before Paul had to go on another out of town trip. I was again the Designated Authority Figure, this time on a Tuesday, after school had let out.

The kids were okay to leave for a few hours at a time, so I was able to get some work done during the day, after stopping by around mid-morning; still, I made sure and got to their place about mid to late afternoon.

As an engineering consultant and designer, I usually have enough slack that taking time for such things isn't a problem.

I found a note that the boys had gone off to the local park for a baseball game; a little noise revealed that Jan was in the den in front of the computer.

As I moved up next to her, she looked up at me, but continued reading the web page she had up. A brief look revealed that it was something involving how quickly breasts grew on teen females. With extreme casualness, I made my way over to the stereo, and asked Jan if it would bother her if I listened to some music. A quick shake of her head, and I soon had some Mozart playing while I read a technical magazine I'd received that day.

The next thing that I noticed was the sound of a small riot approaching the den: Leo and John were back, demanding to be fed, and right now. I looked up to see Jan shutting down the computer; then we both got up and headed toward the kitchen to prepare supper. During the meal – spaghetti with meatballs, garlic bread, and salad – I noticed that Jan kept looking at me. I discretely checked to make sure that I'd shaved, my fly was zipped up, that I didn't have a spaghetti noodle stuck to my forehead, and so on.

After supper, the boys headed in to the living room for a rousing game of Nintendo while Jan and I cleared the table, and cleaned the kitchen.