Chapter 44 Don’t Be a Sore Loser
Without another word, Courtney pushed Alexander into the kitchen.
“You really should spend more time with Jordan. Look how happy he is playing with Tina! I also heard from the maids who take care of him that he has never been so happy before—that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Alexander felt a pang of guilt as he listened to Courtney’s words and was taken aback when an apron was shoved into his hands. “Put this on so that the flour won’t get on your clothes.”
His eyes slightly twitched as he stared at the pink apron in his hands. He was about to say something when Courtney urged, “Why are you still standing there? Go and wash your hands. It’s already 5.00PM, and the kids will die of hunger if we don’t cook dinner soon.”
He actually listened to her as he silently put on the apron and washed his hands. With that, Alexander began learning how to make noodles under Courtney’s instructions.
“When we make our own cookies, a simple round or square shaped cookie is usually fine. However, kids don’t focus on flavor—they like the appearance of the food more than how it tastes. When we’re making cookies, we can use molds or our hands to pinch the dough into various animal shapes.”
Courtney demonstrated and squeezed the dough on the oven paper. “Look, this is the shape of a small duck, but don’t make it too fat—it’ll expand on its own after you put it in the oven.”
Courtney looked very serious when she was teaching as she stared at her oven paper. Shortly after that, various animals appeared on the baking tray.
Alexander looked at her as he stood on the side and suddenly felt a strange feeling in his heart.
All of a sudden, he found her very interesting; she was far more interesting than all the women he had met before.
Courtney was not vain and pretentious; not only was she capable at work and at home, she was also kind and brave. She was simple, direct, and also very patient when it came to dealing with the children.
Mr. Alexander, why don’t you consider making my mommy your wife?
The words that he had taken as a child’s joke suddenly turned up in his head. Alexander’s hand trembled and squeezed too much dough onto the oven paper as a weird pile of dough appeared.
Courtney bursted into a fit of giggles and said bluntly, “President Duncan, we’re lucky that this dough is beige in color. Otherwise, no one would want to eat a pile of chocolate flavored poop-shaped cookies.”
Alexander’s expression froze as he looked at his own masterpiece and felt embarrassed. He impatiently threw down the things in his hand and said, “You do it yourself then.”
“Someone’s sulking.” Courtney raised her eyebrow and gave him a gloating look. “All right, it’s not like we can’t save it—I think there’s a way we can still salvage this.”
After that, she took out a small cranberry from the bag of cranberries and placed it on the ‘poop’ shaped cookie before using a toothpick to lengthen the end of the dough.
“There, it looks like a small snake now.”
Alexander glanced at the salvaged ‘snake’ shape—its eyes made from cranberries radiated a playful shine as the ‘snake’ curled lazily on the oven paper with its long, thin tail dragging behind.
He stared at it for a while as his eyes unconsciously moved to Courtney’s face—that smug look on her was surprisingly pleasant to his eyes.
At dinner time, Jordan seemed much happier than usual. Alexander, on the other hand, was amazed that the little boy took the initiative to eat by himself. Feeding Jordan had always been a difficult task because he would rather not eat than let others feed him; even if he was fed, he would only eat a little. Hence, the five-year-old Jordan was always thinner and weaker compared to his peers.
“Can you actually eat by yourself, Jordan?” Alexander couldn’t help but ask.
“He’s already five years old; who doesn’t know how?” Courtney raised her voice. “Jordan knows a lot of things, doesn’t he?”
Jordan nodded his head and glanced at Alexander with disdain, seeming as though he was just hiding his talents from Alexander before.
Alexander was slightly annoyed by Jordan’s gaze, but he finally caved in and put some food in Jordan’s bowl as he said gently, “I’m the one who hasn’t been paying enough attention to you. You should eat more.”
It was getting late and Courtney was prepared to leave after the meal, but Tina was reluctant to go back as she insisted on playing games together.
There was a huge LCD television in Alexander’s living room with a game called ‘Tank Battle’ on it, which could be played by four people at the same time with a game console each.
They were only five minutes into the first round as Alexander occupied all of their territories and ended the game.
Courtney was a little frustrated. “This is not fair. You must have played it very frequently since it’s your family’s game machine. We’re all new to this game, so this is not fair.”
“This is my first time playing this too.” Alexander said blatantly. “Don’t make excuses for your failures.”
As soon as he heard that, Jordan kicked Alexander with frustration and jumped around angrily—no one knew what he was saying as he grabbed his drawing board and wrote, “Bad Daddy.”
Alexander gave a wry smile as he stroked Jordan’s head and asked, “Am I considered bad if I win? Jordan, that’s not logical—you can’t be a sore loser when you lose.”
Jordan glared at him and pushed his hand away as he sulked, sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Alexander had no choice but to play again.
This time, he carefully circled around the game for almost half an hour before finally deciding to counterattack, but Jordan kicked off the game console in his hand as Courtney broke into his camp with a tank and destroyed everything.
“Yeah, we won!”
Tina jumped up and cheered as she tore down a note and slapped it across Alexander’s forehead. “Punishment!”
Alexander questioned. “How come there was no punishment for you guys when you lost earlier?”
“We were just trying out the game earlier. How can there be punishment when it was just a trial? This is the real start of the game,” Courtney replied with a justified look.
He glanced at his son who followed her lead and nodded his head.
Alexander was speechless. I have led the wolves into my house, and my own son is rebelling against me.
They played several rounds after that—Alexander had the intention to win, but he didn’t stand a chance against the sabotage of the two little kids. Finally, after being plastered with a face full of notes, the papers fluttered along with Alexander’s breath and had almost covered his whole face. Laughing heartily, Courtney fell on the cushion and shouted, “I’m afraid we can’t play the game anymore—there’s no more space on your face to stick more notes!”
The children clapped their hands and jumped on the cushion as Tina laughed loudly.
“All right, it’s late—we should go.” After she calmed down, Courtney stood up from the sofa and reached toward Tina. “Let’s go, Tina. It’s almost 10.00PM, and it’ll be too late if we don’t go back soon.”
Immediately, Tina’s smile vanished from her face as she pouted. “No! Since it’s already late, why don’t we stay here for the night, Mommy?”
Courtney’s face dropped.
