The Apple of My Eye -Kaz Brekker (Complete)

Chapter Six

KATTERDAM

Philip's happy laugh made Laura smile from the kitchen.

"Come on, Jordan, you can do it!" Philip was saying, excited. "Like this! Try like this!"

Laura put the cocoa on the four cups and carried them to the parlour, where her family was waiting for her.

Philip was laying on his stomach on the padded part of the ground where Jordan would stay, trying to convince her to turn to her stomach too. Misses Hoult was watching them, poking Mister Hoult's ribs to watch them too, but Mister Hoult seemed too busy trying not to laugh.

"Still trying to teach her to roll over?" Laura asked, walking into the room.

She gave two cups for the grown ups and the other cup to Philip, who sat, defeated and drank his cocoa.

"She's not learning!" he complained.

"I think she's too small still," Laura said. "You have to be patient with her, Phil, she's just three months old."

"But in that book that you read said that some babies can roll over at three or even two months old. I'm her uncle, I need to show her how to do it so she can do it faster than the other babies," he explained.

Laura couldn't help but laugh at Philips's cuteness. He was his happiest when he was with Jordan.

She took a second to think that she never, in a million years, thought she would have a family again. Not when her mother killed herself, not when her father tried to kill her, not when she ran away and not even when she was pregnant – she had been so sure she would be just another woman, alone with a baby, struggling to give everything a child deserved. Even when Kaz came to tell her he would be by her side, she wouldn't have imagined she would have gotten fake-parents like the Hoults and a little brother like Philip.

"Well, then, continue to teach her, Master Philip," joked Laura. "Just careful with her head."

"I will," he promised. "But look what she can do!"

He took a small rattle that had been his when he was a baby and pressed it on Jordan's right hand. She closed it around the rattle and gave a tentative shake.

Laura pretended to be surprise, though she had noticed Jordan's hand fixation that last week.

"Wow!" Laura said.

"I know right!" said Philip. "And she's been smiling a lot more."

"You taught her well, then, Phil. You're a good uncle," Laura said. And that wasn't a joke. Philip had been doing a lot for them and he didn't even seem to notice how important he had become for the two girls.

"I'm ten years old now, I need to be a good uncle," he explained.

Misses Hoult got up from the sofa.

"Well, since we're talking about that. Let's go? We can't be late for our reservation," she said.

Philip's birthday was special because they usually didn't celebrate it outside of the house, it was usually just a cake and the song Kerch insisted on singing before the cake was eaten, but now he wanted something special. He wanted to show the city to Jordan, which made Laura quite nervous, but in the end, she agreed to go with them to Katterdam for a birthday-brunch on a waffle house.

It would be safe. They would be in a richer part of town and she wouldn't be alone.

Laura had changed quite a bit since the last time she had been in Katterdam, she doubted anyone would recognize her. She had longer hair that was mostly always down and she had let the waves in her hair to stay there, no longer straightening it since she had Jordan. She was not a thin and her body looked more like a woman's and less like a girl's.