Chapter 43
All of a sudden, Josh knocked on the door and walked in with a thermos bucket.
Alexander stared at the silver thermos box and suddenly put down his chopsticks and stood up. “Josh, cancel the dinner party for me-I’m not going.”
“What?”
Josh carried the thermos box with a puzzled look and asked, “Why are you not going? Is there something important? It’s a dinner party for the Shanghai exhibition and sale.”
Meanwhile, Alexander had already grabbed his jacket and walked out, completely ignoring Josh.
While driving back, he stopped at a snack shop and bought two boxes of snacks to bring back home. It was almost evening when he arrived, but the sky was still bright with a gorgeous colorful haze in the distance. The house was lively with the sound of children giggling from the toy room on the second floor.
When Alexander pushed open the door of the room, a fuming Courtney was standing with her hands full of flour while she pointed at Tina, who was jumping excitedly on the bed.
“You come down this instant, Tina! Stop fooling around. I’m going to cook, and no one will be here if you fall down again. You too, Jordan-your injuries are not healed yet. How can you follow this nonsense?”
Alexander leaned against the door and was stunned by the scene in front of him. Jordan had always been quiet and reserved, but now he was actually jumping and rolling on the bed with Tina while wearing Spiderman clothes and occasionally posing as the hero.
He doesn’t look like a person who has a broken bone!
Courtney warned them again as the two kids looked at each other and stuck their tongues out before they got off the bed.
“That’s right, be good. If you want to play, you’ll have to wait until I finish cooking, all right?” Courtney pointed at Tina’s nose. “You must look after Jordan. Don’t play too rough-he’s not healed yet, and his arm is still in a cast.”.
Tina giggled playfully. “Okay Mommy, I know! I won’t play then.”
Courtney nodded with satisfaction and turned around.
Her gaze was so focused on the two children that she hadn’t noticed there was someone at the door, bumping right into him immediately.
“Ah!”
Courtney cried out as her forehead knocked into a rock-hard chest. As she raised her head in pain, her heart skipped a beat while she panicked and took a few steps back.
“S-Sorry.”
Courtney looked down and realized there were two white handprints on Alexander’s black shirt as flour fluttered down to the ground.
Alexander’s expression darkened.
“I’m sorry.” Courtney rushed forward. “Let me help you pat it off.”
As her hands patted Alexander’s chest several times, the white palm prints were gone, leaving behind a chest full of flour. Alexander covered his mouth as he coughed and pushed her away from him.
“Courtney, y-you… are you trying to take revenge on your boss?”
Courtney shook her head vigorously. “I didn’t mean that! It’s just a misunderstanding! I was going to cook dinner-in fact, I’m making dough. How was I supposed to know that you were standing at the door?”
“Are you saying that it’s my fault right now?”
“I’m just saying that you shouldn’t stand at the doorway so quietly.” Courtney muttered guilty.
Alexander’s gaze darkened as his tone sounded strained. “Courtney, is this because I’ve been treating you too nice as of late?”
“No, not at all!” Courtney waved her hands and reasoned calmly. “I just thought that the reason I’m making dough and accidentally soiling your clothes is for your son, so when you think about it-which is more important, your shirt or your son?”
Alexander was actually rendered speechless as he frowned and changed the subject. “There are maids in the house, so why do you need to cook? I invited you as a guest here-don’t turn this on me later and say that I was bullying you.”
“How can what the maids make compare with mine?”
Courtney rolled her eyes and raised her eyebrow. “You don’t believe me? If you make a snack for
Jordan now, Jordan will still be exceptionally happy-even if it’s not as good as the ones made by the maids.”
“We don’t need to go through all that trouble; I’ve already bought some.” Alexander lifted the box of snacks in his hand.
“Store-bought snacks are definitely not the same as the ones you make yourself.”
Suddenly, Courtney thought of something. “Wait a minute, do you not have any plans for tonight?’
Alexander looked at her and answered faintly, “Yep.”
That’s great-you’re just in time. Follow me to the kitchen; let me teach you how to make the dough and snacks for the kids. Let’s go.”
Without another word, Courtney pushed Alexander into the kitchen.
“You really should spend more time with Jordan. Look how happy he is playing with Tina! I also heard from the maids who take care of him that he has never been so happy before-that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Alexander felt a pang of guilt as he listened to Courtney’s words and was taken aback when an apron was shoved into his hands. “Put this on so that the flour won’t get on your clothes.”
His eyes slightly twitched as he stared at the pink apron in his hands. He was about to say something when Courtney urged, “Why are you still standing there? Go and wash your hands. It’s already 5.00PM, and the kids will die of hunger if we don’t cook dinner soon.”
He actually listened to her as he silently put on the apron and washed his hands. With that, Alexander began learning how to make noodles under Courtney’s instructions.
“When we make our own cookies, a simple round or square shaped cookie is usually fine. However, kids don’t focus on flavor-they like the appearance of the food more than how it tastes. When we’re making cookies, we can use molds or our hands to pinch the dough into various animal shapes.”
Courtney demonstrated and squeezed the dough on the oven paper. “Look, this is the shape of a small duck, but don’t make it too fat-it’ll expand on its own after you put it in the oven.”
Courtney looked very serious when she was teaching as she stared at her oven paper. Shortly after that, various animals appeared on the baking tray.
Alexander looked at her as he stood on the side and suddenly felt a strange feeling in his heart.
All of a sudden, he found her very interesting; she was far more interesting than all the women he had met before.
Courtney was not vain and pretentious; not only was she capable at work and at home, she was also kind and brave. She was simple, direct, and also very patient when it came to dealing with the children.
Mr. Alexander, why don’t you consider making my mommy your wife?
The words that he had taken as a child’s joke suddenly turned up in his head. Alexander’s hand trembled and squeezed too much dough onto the oven paper as a weird pile of dough appeared.
Courtney bursted into a fit of giggles and said bluntly, “President Duncan, we’re lucky that this dough is beige in color. Otherwise, no one would want to eat a pile of chocolate flavored poop-shaped cookies.”
Alexander’s expression froze as he looked at his own masterpiece and felt embarrassed. He impatiently threw down the things in his hand and said, “You do it yourself then.”
“Someone’s sulking.” Courtney raised her eyebrow and gave him a gloating look. “All right, it’s not like we can’t save it-I think there’s a way we can still salvage this.”
After that, she took out a small cranberry from the bag of cranberries and placed it on the ‘poop’ shaped cookie before using a toothpick to lengthen the end of the dough.
“There, it looks like a small snake now.”
Alexander glanced at the salvaged ‘snake’ shape-its eyes made from cranberries radiated a playful shine as the ‘snake’ curled lazily on the oven paper with its long, thin tail dragging behind.
He stared at it for a while as his eyes unconsciously moved to Courtney’s face–that smug look on her was surprisingly pleasant to his eyes,
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