Tethered ? Awsten Knight

Part 52

"What?" He had a mouth full of cereal as he spoke.

"You have bed head." I smiled at him and combed his hair in an attempt to fix it.

"How bad?"

"It's not that bad." I lowered my voice since his mom was maybe ten feet away from us in the kitchen. "Kinda hot."

"Oh, really?" He hummed with his cute little smirk on his face. That smile that made my heart skip a beat and forget everything else.

"Yeah." I kept my eyes on him as I lifted my coffee cup up to my lips after I fixed his hair.

15 minutes later we had cleaned up our breakfast from the table and Sam and Gracie had joined us in the kitchen.

We were all in sweats - Awsten and I hadn't even broke out the matching pajamas yet.

Ginny came out of the pantry with what could only be assumed to be left over Christmas candies that wouldn't be used even after tomorrow.

"Holy shit, Mom." Awsten gasped. "What are you and Dad doing with all of this in the house?"

"There was a bake sale at the elementary school last weekend. Your father and I weren't going to eat all of this."

"The classic green and red M&Ms." Gracie hummed, and Awsten and I side eyed each other.

Those red M&MS.

"Did you make cookies?" I asked Ginny.

"I did. Was easy enough." She shrugged. "Would those still count as trash cookies?"

"Absolutely."

"We could make three different kinds." Gracie leaned over to look at the candy and Awsten rested his hand back on my back, moving his hand gently as he stared at the candies too.

"No nuts." He chimed.

"What's wrong with nuts?"

"They don't belong in cookies."

"That's not true!" I turned to look at him, meeting his light eyes as he made a playful snickering face at me.

"Yes it is! Walnuts are disgusting and they taste like soap."

"You taste like soap." i mumbled, then blushed when I realized his family was with us. "Sorry."

Awsten busted out laughing at my pink cheeks, then pressed a kiss to my temple.

"So no nuts." Ginny was smiling. "Pecans would have been good."

"I agree with him, no nuts." Gracie put her hair up in a ponytail. "I can get out some pans."

Sam asked Awsten some question that I missed, and then Gracie chimed in.

"How are you doing, sweetheart?" Ginny asked me softly while Awsten was distracted with Gracie and Sam.

"Huh?" I asked, then understood. It was Christmas Eve after all. "Oh, um, I'm alright."

"If you ever want to talk, I'm here."

"Thank you." I felt myself deflate a little, then looked at the leftover kisses and Heath bars on the table that sat with the M&Ms. "We could make chocolate chip toffee cookies?"

"That sounds so good." Gracie threw her head back, and Awsten threw up the hood of his sweatshirt before he walked over to me, slipping his hands back on my waist in front of everyone.

I loved how comfortable he was doing it in front of his family. Just enough affection.

"Are the kisses going to be giant chocolate chips?" He asked all of us.