You Know Me Through The Years

Another Saturday

The aroma of pancakes is what woke Cade up on Saturday morning. He had dreamt about asking Mallory Daniels out on a date and that outing turned out to be quite successful, but when his eyes opened, he groaned. He wanted to go back to sleep, but the grumbling of his stomach and the smell was all through the house, it was hard to resist. He growled at himself when he decided it was time to remove himself from his comfortable bed.

The lean teenager moved to the clothes hamper in the corner to remove the shirt he had tossed in there the night before. He had probably worn the navy blue shirt all week, however, he did not care if it smelled like his armpits or grease at this point. It was a shirt and he did not feel like going to his dresser to rummage around for a clean one. He also grabbed a pair of flannel pajama pants and pulled them on as well before walking out of his room half awake and practically starving. He stopped for a moment to stretch and take a deep breath.

Cade caught a whiff of bacon in the air which made him move slightly faster. His stomach rumbled fiercely at the thought of greasy, yet satisfying bacon. Of course, he knew he was going to have to fight his father over the delicious strips of pork, but that was only the half of it. Both he and his father could inhale a stack of pancakes in record time and still want more. To be fair, it was not that they had to eat much, but it was that the two of them enjoyed food. Especially when the Queen of the realm lovingly cooked for them.

When the teen entered the kitchen, he saw his mother standing over the hot stove with a pan in one hand and a spatula in the other. She turned to him with a smile as she worked to flip the pancake that she was currently cooking. He gave her a tired smile before moving to the bar and sitting next to his little sister, Mara.

"Your hair looks funny." The little red head pointed out as her brother took a seat. She was coloring in her book with a passive look on her face as Cade rested his chin in his hand.

"Good morning, Mara." Cade slurred out as he yawned. "Morning, Mom."

"Morning!" Roe said bright and cheery as she turned around to look at her son. "What time did you go to bed last night?" She asked him noticing the dark circles under his eyes and his hair out of sorts.

"Late." Cade huffed out before dropping his forehead onto the counter with a groan. He was still tired.

"Well, you better wake up. We have work to do outside." Roe heard her son groan in protest as she poured more batter into the pan.

"What are we doing outside?" The teenager picked his head up off the counter as his father walked in. "I thought we were doing other things today." Dante seemed to be disappointed as much as his son in that moment.

"Remember the tree that fell during the storm on Thursday?" Roe looked at her husband.

"Yeah."

"It has to go."

"But, I thought we were going to..."

"That's next weekend. Not this weekend." Roe rolled her eyes as Dante scoffed. "I told you last night that it was next Saturday, not today."

"It was a long day." He ran a hand through his hair with a huff as he looked at Cade. "Alright, Cade and I will handle the tree." The teenager looked up at his father with a pleading expression on his face. "Sorry kid, what Mom wants, she gets." Dante moved to sit on the stool next to his two children. The youngest one had not woken up yet, however it could not be much longer. "I was looking forward to eating carnival food."

"Oh stop pouting." Roe told him. "I swear the two of you think of nothing but food or sleep." She grumbled as she fixed her daughter's plate.

Breakfast continued like normal until Evie's giggling could be heard over the baby monitor on the counter. That was Roe's cue to put her breakfast on hold to grab her youngest child. Dante watched her leave as he opened his mouth to take another bite of bacon. As soon as Roe was out of the room, he looked at Cade with a sneaky glint in his eyes. A smirk appeared on his face as he pushed his plate away from him and stood up motioning for the teenager to follow him.