Ayla: Always an Alpha

Chapter 37 - Pork and Potatoes

~Peter~

5 Days Later

Noah Martin. With a dazzling white-toothed smile and sparkling blue eyes, he had that classic, All-American pretty boy look. Although the news article mentioned that he and Ayla were childhood friends, I did not expect Ayla to be someone that rushed into an engagement.

At first, it didn't make sense, but the longer I stared at the screen, the more I could imagine the lively grin on Noah's face turned towards Ayla. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy, like someone that would always look at Ayla with a smile.

In spite of an uncomfortable pull in my chest, I knew that this meant it was time for me to stop spending each weekend scouring the internet. Ayla was safe and content, and that's all I needed to know.

Although my dreams still haunted me at night, I'd known for a long time that quitting this portion of my Sunday ritual was the healthy way forward. I needed to deal with the things my mind made up without the reassurance of the media.

I pushed the screen of the laptop closed and left the library for Stephanie's. She'd known I'd had the day off and invited me to her place for dinner with her and Charlie.

From the outside, Stephanie's home looked like all the rest - beige vinyl siding, stone accents, and a lot of slushy snow, but as soon as she opened the door, I stepped into a kid's playground.

Littering her gray and white color scheme was a rainbow of Charlie's toys. There were action figures frozen in a battle on the living room table, and trucks and trains of every size and color lined the edges of a geometric rug.

"Careful!" Stephanie yelled.

Thinking she was speaking to me, I paused my perusal of her hallway. When I turned, however, I saw Charlie scaling the built-in shelving of the living room in a Spiderman costume. His foot kicked at a picture frame, and it fell over onto the floor. Luckily for his bare feet, the frame was already glassless. 

"Charlie, get down from there right now!"

The kid gave his mother a wicked smile and jumped from the shelving.

"Charlie!"

He landed in a crouch on the living room rug.

"Impressive," I told him.

Stephanie, meanwhile, was not amused. "Don't encourage him," Steph chided me.

Charlie ducked behind the couch and then popped up in front of his mother. He spread his fingers towards her and pretended to wrap her into a web.

"He's been on a Spiderman kick this week." Steph said. Her voice was tired as she played along and spun around in the "web".

"I can tell."

"Do you mind cutting me out of the web, Charlie? I need to go make your dino nuggets."

Dino nuggets must have been a real lure for Charlie because he immediately made some weird hand motions. When he appeared finished, Stephanie took an exaggerated step towards the kitchen.

With less children's toys, the kitchen was far less colorful than the open area I'd first stepped into. The backsplash was white, the cabinets were white, the walls were gray, and the countertop was a white marble. Other than me, the darkest thing in the room was the stovetop. I felt like a dark splatter of paint in a surgery room. It was the complete opposite of the warm, comfortable scheme Ayla had decorated her home with.

As I continued to survey her space, Steph's head disappeared behind her freezer door. I watched as she opened a bag of Tyson's dino nuggets, carefully spread five out onto a baking sheet, and deposited the bag back into the freezer. Next, she grabbed a mitt, opened the oven, removed a cast iron pan from inside, and replaced it with the sheet of dino nuggets.