Once bitten and twice shy

 

It was stuck like glue. Who knew pancake batter got like this when still in the mixing bowl. Alfie grimaced as he scrubbed a little harder. He needed to get Nora's kitchen cleaned up before she came home.

Yes, she was so right. Chores kept you from going crazy. And he needed this right now. Although, he couldn't really think to eat. He just kept going. Wishing he'd been in a better mind at Christmas, but he wasn't. 

He knew Christine hated him. How could he have been so miserable? He just needed to stop this. But a knock came to the door, it was Gage with a gift and Alec too.

"Is Nora here?"

"Oh, I thought that was for me," Alfie gave him a goofy grin and helped him unload in the livingroom which had no tree nor anything holiday for that matter. He told them she went to Christine's.

"Well, he wanted to see her," Gage wasn't going to act like he cared one way or another, but Alfie thought they might have hit it off.

"Just relax," Alfie sighed as he reached for the phone. He rang her up and got her on the first try.

"Guess who's here?" Alfie said. Naturally, she didn't know.

"I think the boys want to see you," he told her. 

"Boys?" She shouted and Alfie pulled the phone away from his ear and squinted.

"Look, I'm going to be leaving," he promised earlier to take her shift at the pharmacy. "Now come home. They'll be waiting."

He scrubbed the bowl once more, more fiercely. Finally, it was clean. He rinsed it and put it in the drainer.

"Now, you two just make yourself at home," he got out some tuna sandwiches, and chips with dip. "She'll be here soon."

He needed to get on his pharmacy sweatshirt and be on his way. "Now remember, behave," Alfie told them as he was leaving. Actually, he just said it because he knew he was the one who had to behave.