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When they had bought the house, Bobbi had had a vision.
“Okay,” she had said, “picture it. Hunter, you picturing it?”
“No,” he had said, “you haven’t told me what to picture.”
“What I meant was, prepare your brain to picture it. Prepped?”
“Yes, I’m prepped. Now come on. Tell me your vision.”
The vision had been a kids corner. She had been pregnant with Penelope, the oldest of their two daughters, at the time, and so she had been in the full throes of nesting. Hunter liked to tease her about how she was like a mockingbird prepping for her hatchlings. But he had to admit, it was sort of exciting to plan it all. Terrifying, but it still made him giddy. Even just the idea of a kid’s corner made little baby butterflies swarm about in his stomach.
The vision had included a shelf for all of their toys with those fancy boxes that hid the fact that your house was secretly a mess really well, a cozy carpet on the ground that was both soft and easy to vacuum, and--the pièce de résistance--a very large bookshelf with adjacent bean bags for the perfect reading environment.
And that’s where Hunter sat now. He was in the big comfy white one that had all the foxes on it, his daughters on his left and right, curled into his side. Below his feet was that comfy rug that Bobbi had insisted on, the one shaped like a cloud and was stain resistant. They had just finished cleaning up all of their toys from about the house, shoving them neatly into the fancy orange boxes on the wrap-around shelves below the window, and were now sitting together reading the books the girls had picked.
He and Bobbi had a rule with reading which was if the girls asked for them to read them a book, they would read them the book. Even if it was the stupidest, most annoying book with the worst pictures and the dumbest characters, they would read it as many times as the girls asked. They were all about encouraging reading after all. Of course they didn’t really have any horrible books, those were not allowed on the premises, but they sure did have a few that got rather dull after the 867th time reading.
“Again,” Nellie said, opening up the book Hunter had just shut. At three and a half, her favorite books matched her attention span. So, it didn’t take much time to have read Dinosaur’s and Duck’s Zoo Adventure about a thousand times. They were on reread number twenty for the day.
Heaving a sigh, Hunter smiled and kissed his baby girl’s bright blonde head. “One more time. Then it’s Penny’s turn. You got your book, Birdie?”
“You know it, daddy-O.”
“Get that from Uncle Daniel?”
“Yeah, how'd ya know?”
He smirked and pulled his daughters closer. “I’m very skilled. You may not know this, but your father was a really really really good spy.”
“Better than mummy?” Nellie asked.
“Loads better.”
Penny quirked a brow. “You sure about that?”
He ruffled her hair and poked her in the side. “No I am not sure about that, but I do not tolerate this insubordination young one.”
His daughter giggled as he tickled her before going back to lean against his arm.
“Now,” Hunter said, his daughters settled, “are we ready to join Dinosaur and Duck on their zoo adventure for the eight-thousandth time today?”
Penny laughed and Nellie cheered. With them at his side, Hunter smiled.