Kieran

  Kieran was grateful for the break, not that he felt like he needed it. In fact, he was sure that if he had no other responsibilities, he’d be able to raid all day long, even if they kept failing. He didn’t usually feel all that fatigued or drained after long gaming sessions, despite it seeming to be a fairly normal response. A lot of his previous gaming friends would start running on empty after three or four hours. Especially mentally.

  As it was, he may not have felt that sort of drain, but he did feel like he shouldn’t just sit and play. He had responsibilities, not the least of which were his kids. And even with ostensibly taking the day off specifically to play a game, he felt bad not spending time with them when they were around.

  So once Aoife walked through the door, Kieran silently vowed that the next several hours were family time.

  It took a bit of doing once he got out the old counter-mounted apple corer, but he fought his way through five apples - one for Kat, two for Aoife, and two for himself. Everytime he used the corer, he made a note to himself that he should probably get a new one. Theirs was an embarrassing number of years old, and a little bit rusty. It still performed admirably, but he was willing to bet he could find a nicer one for a reasonable price online somewhere.

  He quickly cleaned up the little tool and put it away while considering where to look for a new one. But as usual, the issue was forgotten as soon as he placed the spirals of apple on plates with a little bit of peanut butter and called his girls over.

  Together, the three of them snacked on the couch and watched some old afterschool TV that Kieran pulled up. While he didn’t think that everything modern was bad, a lot of it felt lacking compared to what he remembered growing up. So searching up old favorites of his and Natalie’s had become a common occurrence for the family.

  With an episode down and empty plates, Kieran set the girls up to watch an old Nickelodeon favorite while he got dinner prep underway. Natalie would be home a little after 4, most likely, so they would have plenty of time to relax tonight and eat dinner at their own pace before he was planning on returning to the game. And she would definitely appreciate him getting dinner mostly prepared before she got home.

  So that’s exactly what he did. He got the chicken thighs he had left in the fridge in the morning to defrost, a couple onions, and an assortment of veggies, all of which would go perfectly in a stir-fry. And the chicken was only partially defrosted, which was perfect - the still mostly frozen core would make cutting it up that much easier.

  It only took him a few minutes to get everything chopped and dumped into separate bowls. He didn’t want to mix anything yet, as it probably wouldn’t be cooked for a while, but this way he could quite literally just throw everything into their wok when it was dinner time.

  Once the prepped ingredients were back in the fridge, he joined the girls back on the couch again to relax until his wife got home.

  It was less than an hour after that when he heard the garage door open and Nat walked in.

  “I’m home.” She said from the mudroom while taking her shoes off.

  “Mommy!” Kat squealed and jumped up to go greet Nat the way a puppy would. Aoife remained on the couch, but Kieran could see her struggling with wanting to go greet her mother too.

  He nearly shook his head; she was only six. Was she already hitting that phase where she thought it was lame to be excited to see her parents? He hoped not.

  Kieran leaned his head back over the back of the couch, getting a reasonable but upside down view of the mudroom’s door and Nat standing in it.

  “Hi.” He said with a goofy grin.

  “Hi, yourself. No game?” She asked, scooping up Kat with a bit of effort. Then she nuzzled her nose against Kat’s, both their faces scrunching up.

  “Taking a break until around eight.” Kieran said. “We played a good bit in the late morning and early afternoon. Was done by the time Aoife got home.”

  “I see.” Nat said as she walked over and leaned down for an upside down kiss over the back of the couch. “How’d you all do?”

  “Pretty good, I think.” Kieran said, grinning. “It’s hard to say with any certainty because Mag Mell seems to be approaching the raid a little strangely, but we’ve cleared the first portion of it.”

  “Very nice.”

  “Also, dinner is prepped in the fridge for cooking. I’m planning on making a stir-fry.”

  “Also very nice.” Nat said again, her smile growing.

  “Yes, so come sit down with us for a bit. You don’t need to do anything else right now, do you?” Kieran asked, side-eyeing Aoife who was still sitting on the couch, trying to look calm and uninterested.

  “Yeah, okay,” Nat said, carrying Kaitlyn with her back to the couch. Kieran had positioned himself in the corner that Natalie usually sat in while Aoife was sitting on the other end in Kieran’s normal spot. Natalie opted to squeeze in between them, placing Kaitlyn on her lap. She positioned herself so that they would both lean toward Kieran, and they more or less plopped against him once they were settled in.

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  Kieran chuckled, shifting around so they could more comfortably lay against him. He also caught Aoife’s eye and motioned her over. She looked conflicted for a moment before Nat snatched her arm and pulled her over too, leaving the four of them squished up into one corner of the couch.

  All things considered though, it was pretty comfy.

  “So, whatcha watching?” Nat asked, laying her cheek on Kieran’s chest so she could see the TV.

  “Little Bear.” Aoife said, her voice muffled by Nat’s sweater.

  “Good choice.” She said, and the whole family settled in for a while to just snuggle up together and relax.

  Two hours later, Kieran was back on the couch with the girls while Nat did the dishes, as was their tradition; he cooked, so she cleaned up. At least until the girls were old enough to clean up without the worry of making a worse mess.

  Aoife had dropped a dirty plate once and it shattered all over the floor, including the remnants of chicken juice and everything else from the chicken they roasted that evening. They’d been hesitant to have the girls clean up since.

  It wasn’t long before Nat was done and back on the couch again, cuddled into Kieran on one side, while the girls were snuggled under blankets on the other. Kieran was flipping through random videos online, looking for something fun; he eventually settled on a compilation of animals being silly. Mostly cats and dogs.

  Once the video was playing and the girls were laughing at cats leaping four feet in the air thanks to lime wedges, Kieran put the controller to the side and settled into his spot. He placed an arm around Nat comfortably, letting his hand settle on her waist while she was for all intents and purposes laying on top of him.

  The crown of her head was positioned nicely for him to place a kiss there, and he smiled at the calm, cozy night.

  “So, how was your day today? I haven’t asked yet.” He said, eyes still on the TV, but not particularly focused on it.

  “It was alright. The office wasn’t really all that busy, and I didn’t get any fun stories out of it today.” Nat said idly.

  “Your fun stories usually entail all kinds of nasty tooth stuff, so I’m perfectly happy with you not getting any of those, thanks.” Kieran chuckled.

  “What, you don’t like hearing about people coming in with rotting teeth and needing to go to the hospital?”

  “No, I don’t.” Kieran deadpanned. Nat giggled. “Don’t you have any actually funny or silly stories?”

  “Not many.” Nat answered, considering. “Unfortunately, I get silly stories that end up with pretty gross injuries. Comes with the dentistry territory I suppose. Tooth stuff doesn’t usually go over well. At best it’ll be that someone did something stupid and chipped a tooth.”

  “I guess that’s fair.” Kieran said.

  “On the other hand, you get enough silly stories for the both of us.” Nat said, sliding her head back to meet eyes.

  Kieran looked down at her and grinned. “College kids do be doing dumb shit.” Natalie rolled her eyes at the terrible language. “Did I tell you about last week when I saw a kid get locked outside of the dorms in a towel?” Kieran mused, thinking back.

  “You did not.”

  “I suppose it’s not that surprising, but yeah. I was just walking by, but it seemed like he lost a bet or something, then his friends locked him out. They had to let him back in when the next student tried to get into the dorm building, but it seemed like he’d been out there for a while.”

  “Poor kid.”

  “Yeah. Even worse, it was the freshman dorms. So he’s got probably four years worth of time left at the school still.” Kieran chuckled. “Dunno how many kids saw it though.”

  “If he’s lucky, not many.” Nat said. “Best of luck to him though. Hopefully it doesn’t follow him too much.”

  “On the plus side, college kids don’t seem as…relentless as younger ones. If that happened to a middle or high school kid?” Kieran shuddered. “Brutal.”

  “I remember one kid in my middle school slipped and fell at lunch one day. Totally normal kid, spilled their lunch one time. Got mocked for it for weeks, until someone else did something stupid. Which, admittedly, I don’t remember now. I was there for the slip, though.” Nat said, thinking back to her school days.

  “High school was rough, man.” Kieran laughed, chuckling to himself. “I absolutely hated it. Middle school, too. That was even worse.”

  “Oh, I hated middle school.” Nat said. “My family moved to a new town right before sixth grade, and I was just not having a good time. I remember just being so upset all the time, but I wasn’t being bullied or anything. Just super upset all the time for no real reason.”

  “I get that. Middle school was not a good time for anyone.” Kieran said, reminiscing about his own memories and how much he hated it, too.

  And then he saw Aoife looking at them, completely wide-eyed. She looked horrified. Kieran tapped Nat’s side where his hand was positioned, and she looked up at him, then followed his eyeline to their daughter.

  “Oh,” she said, unsure what to say. Aoife just turned back to the TV quietly, apparently not wanting to engage.

  Nat looked up at Kieran awkwardly, and whispered, “Did we just scar our daughter?”

  “If that’s what finally gets to her, I’d be shocked.” He said jokingly, but looked back to the girl, concerned. “But I hope not.”

  “I suppose it wasn’t that bad.” Natalie said at normal volume, hoping to do a little course correction. “I didn’t really know it at the time, but I made some really good friends there.”

  “Me too.” Kieran said, trying to back her up. “And I had Evan all the way through too. We played so many video games after school. Like everyday. Kinda miss that.”

  “You say that like you didn’t just stay home all day today to play a game.” Nat teased.

  “Hey, there’s gotta be some perks to being an adult, right? Sometimes I need to abuse that power a little.”

  “I guess that’s fair.” Nat said. “And you still made dinner.”

  “And you say that like I don’t usually cook.” Kieran said.

  “Hey, I would’ve cooked if you didn’t.”

  “Well, yeah.” Kieran said. “I’d hope you wouldn’t let us starve.”

  “I wouldn’t.” She asserted. “But I do like it when you cook. Your food always tastes good.”

  “Yeah, Dad’s a much better cook.” Kaitlyn said, sounding uninterested in the conversation.

  “He is.” Aoife chimed in, giggling at a cat falling off a bed. “Mom’s food is almost always something from the freezer.”

  Kieran snorted, struggling not to laugh as he watched Nat’s ears go red. When she made dinner, it was usually a frozen, pre-made meal, like the girls said. Kieran wouldn’t ever hold it against her - they were usually easy and tasty after spending all day at work. But apparently the girls had noticed that Kieran’s dinners were more likely to be fresh than frozen.

  Even if it was a low effort, thrown together meal like their stir-fry that night.

  “Fine.” Nat harrumphed, crossing her arms in mock anger. The motion jabbed Kieran in the stomach and knocked the air out of him. “I just won’t cook next time.”

  “Maybe we should make Aoife cook dinner?” Kieran said, grinning at their eldest. She suddenly looked afraid, and very much no longer on the attack.

  “Oh?” Nat said, affecting a dangerous looking grin. “We could do that…”

  “Mom, your food is good, please don’t make me do it.”