They had only moved Kevin to the mansion a couple of days earlier, and Lee was already struggling a bit. She didn't know what to do with herself for the entire day anymore.

No, that wasn't entirely true. She didn't have a job that took up the entire day anymore, and without Kevin around, the days were feeling extremely long between their runs and when Tarin got back from the shop.

It had been years since she had more than a couple hours alone at home with nothing that needed to be done.

No, if you didn't count the hours spent during and after merges when she was stuck inside but having nothing to do, Lee had never really had more than a couple hours like this. Even when Kevin was in school all day, Lee didn't have more than a couple hours after going to the bar and getting the paperwork done before needing to go pick him up from school.

But this situation…this was not going to work. Maybe if she found more to do at the bar and went to the gym every day.

That didn't solve her boredom and restlessness at the moment, though.

Leaving her music playing in the living room, Lee pushed herself up off the couch and made her way to the kitchen. Maybe there was something she had missed cleaning up earlier.

When you owned your own business you were supposed to be happy when business was booming. You were supposed to be happy when when you were having to work to find time to do everything you wanted to do. The problem was that when your business was completely related to something that only you could do, you couldn’t even hire help to make things easier.

It was a problem. It had taken years to build up this kind of client base, and when he really thought about it, Tarin was thrilled that things were going so well, but the problem was that he didn’t really want to be at work so long. Where were all the days when he’d had gaps in the middle of the day? Why was he busy from the time he got to work until it was time to go home?

Still. Tarin was doing his best to not look a gift horse in the mouth and when the last client finally left for the night he was more than ready to get home. Kevin was at the Mansion now, and Lee was working on adjusting to not having him around.

It hadn’t been an easy adjustment.

Stuffing the last of his stuff in his backpack, Tarin slung the pack over his shoulder and finished locking up for the day before heading home. He wanted to make a stop first, just a quick one, but he wanted to do something he hadn’t done before.

After he’d managed his little errand, Tarin shot off af quick text to Lee, letting her know that he was on his way home, and headed that way.

It didn’t take very long (and he’d even managed to ride the elevator up to the apartment) and Tarin was unlocking and opening the door.

“Hey…sorry I’m late, I wanted to stop and grab…” he said, looking around and realizing that the apartment was seemingly empty.

Lee hadn’t said she was going anywhere when he’d shot her that text, so it was a very confused Tarin Brooks who stood in the entryway of the apartment, box in hand containing a cheesecake from the grocery store down the block from the shop.

Maybe Lee had had it before, but he hadn’t, and sometimes it was just fun to have dessert before dinner.

There really wasn't anything that she had missed in the kitchen. Still, Lee was wiping the counter down when she felt Tarin approaching the door. A moment later, Lee heard the key followed by his voice.

At least she wasn't going to be alone here now.

Tarin didn't finish his sentence, though, trailing off after saying that he'd stopped to grab…something. Frowning as she dried her hands, Lee made her way out of the kitchen to see Tarin just standing there.

"You stopped to grab what, Tarin?" Lee asked as she walked over to him, the frown still on her face. It was only then that Lee saw that he was holding a box in his hand as he stood there.

"What's that?" she asked, head tilted slightly as her eyes moved from the box up to Tarin's face.

Oh, Lee had been in the kitchen. Tarin tilted his head slightly when Lee made her way out of there, wondering what she’d been doing. THey’d been cooking more together, but as far as he knew, cooking still wasn’t something that Lee did on her own. Was he late enough that she had already gotten dinner?

Why was she frowning?

The questions were moving quickly through Tarin’s head, but he didn’t ask any of them because Lee noticed what he was carrying. Shifting the box into one hand and then the other so that he could shrug out of his backpack, Tarin grinned, hoping that Lee would stop frowning soon enough.

“We keep talking about this, but up until now, we’ve never actually gotten one to try. It was a long day and I thought that we deserved something nice.” he said, opening up the box.

”It’s just from the store down the street from the shop, so I doubt it’s anything like the best you’ve had…but you keep mentioning cheesecake and I’ve seen them there a couple of times.” he said, moving further into the apartment and approaching Lee so she could inspect the baked goods in the box.

”How was your day?”

As she got closer and Tarin took his backpack off, Lee was able to see what it was he was carrying. The frown slid off of her face, and then Tarin opened the box.

"That looks delicious," Lee said, smiling up at Tarin as she stopped in front of him. It was such a small thing, really, but the fact that Tarin had thought to to get a cheesecake because she'd mentioned liking them a number of times but they had yet to get one, well it made the day so much better instantly.

How was her day? Lee shook her head slightly. "I really need to find something else to do during the day," she told him. "I don't think I've ever spent this much time alone without something I needed to work on."

That was much better, Tarin decided as Lee got closer and looked into the box. Now she was smiling and everything seemed just a little bit better. She even thought that the cheesecake looked delicious. Tarin really hoped that it was.

When he asked how Lee’s day was, she said that she needed to find something to do. With Kevin gone and not needing constant care, Lee was finding that there were too many hours in the day and she needed something to fill them.

It was a bit of a problem, ”You could always come visit…” he said with a bit of a smile, ”Though as busy as things have been lately, I don’t know how much more entertaining that would be than hanging out around here.”

Tarin almost suggested that Lee might need to find a hobby or something else to occupy her time, but of course she would have already thought about that.

”We can talk about it over the cheesecake. I’m in a dessert first kind of mood tonight.” he said, leaning forward for a quick kiss before he made his way into the kitchen to set the cheesecake down on the counter.

“They had flavored ones too, but I wanted to find out how it is before I branched out from the original.” Tarin hadn’t ever really been a huge fan of cheesecake, it was so rich that it could quickly become overpowering, but this one really did look good. ”I’ll let you cut it.” he said.waiting for Lee.

Lee laughed softly when Tarin suggested that she could visit him at the shop. "Be careful what you wish for," she told him jokingly. "If I start doing that, you're libel to get sick of me."

They could talk over cheesecake? Returning Tarin's kiss, she followed him back into the kitchen. "That is probably the best idea I've heard today," Lee said smiling up at Tarin as he set the box on the counter.

When Tarin said that he'd let her cut the cake, Lee turned and reached for a knife. It really didn't take long to cut a couple of slices, and as she moved them onto plates, Lee looked up at Tarin again. "What about your day?" she asked. "Was it just long, or did something happen?"

”Impossible.” Tarin said seriously when Lee suggested that Tarin would get sick of her if she came to visit him too much. I’m general if Lee was in the room, things were better for Tarin. She didn’t even really need to be doing anything, just knowing that she was around made him happier than he was if she was somewhere else.

There was also the fact that Lee knew a lot about the shop and even more about how to run a business. No, Tarin did not think that he was in danger of getting sick of having Lee around if she decided to start visiting in the middle of the day.

Cutting the cheesecake didn't take long and soon enough Lee was moving the slices onto plates and asking him about his day.

”Pretty standard day, honestly…just busy. Seems like I’ve actually been working from the time I get there until I leave. Thought I might have a headache coming in earlier but I headed it off at the pass and it went away.”

Lee was there smiling up at him again and Tarin smiled back, ”But I was ready to come home about ten minutes after I got there.”

Grabbing his plate and a fork, Tarin didn’t even head for the table, instead he just stood there in the kitchen and took a bite.

”This is good right? Because if this isn’t even a good example I may have to revise my list of favorites.” Was that a bit of hyperbole? Maybe, but it was totally worth it if it kept a smile on Lee’s face.

Lee had been joking when she'd said that Tarin would get sick of her if she started coming by the shop now regularly in an attempt to keep herself busy, but his voice sounded completely serious.

Lee smiled up at Tarin but didn't get a chance to respond because there was Cheesecake.

It had just been a long, busy day. That was good. Eventful days at the shop tended to not end very well. At least they seemed far fewer and further between than they once were.

Even better because Tarin had managed to avoid the headache that was common after long days.

Lee was just grabbing her plate so they could head out to the table when Tarin took a bite. Announcing that he was going to have to rewrite his favourites if this wasn't even an example of a good cheesecake.

There was only one way to answer that, so Lee took a bite.

"It's definitely not bad," Lee said after slowly tasting and then swallowing. "Strawberry or chocolate are always better, but this is decent for a plain cheesecake."

Lee then took a couple of slow bites before looking up at Tarin again. "You really don't think that you'd get sick of me if I end up at the shop every day?" she asked more seriously this time. "The place is pretty small."

It wasn’t that Tarin had never had cheesecake before. He had definitely had cheesecake before, he usually just picked something else. It was probably something about him that most New Yorkers would frown upon considering the fact that New York was kind of known for its version of the dessert. Pie was just so good though…

Lee was an expert though and as she tasted the cheesecake she declared that it was good…for a plain cheesecake. Damn. Okay, well, now he knew for next time. Strawberry and chocolate were always good. ”Got it, I will remember for next time.” he said.

As for the rest of Lee’s question, Tarin just looked at her for a few moments trying to sort out what to say. The first thing that popped to mind was to say that no, he didn’t think he’d get sick of her. In his head the opposite was much more likely to be true. Especially during long days.

“I mean…maybe eventually, but it would definitely take a while.” he said with a shrug and a smile, “It would also probably really hurt my productivity.”

He would remember that strawberry and chocolate cheesecakes were in general better? As she looked up at Tarin, she smiled. Even if they didn't have cheesecake again for a year, Lee thought that yes, he would remember. He'd been extremely good at picking up and remembering small details so far, whether she'd mentioned them or not.

As Tarin answered her question, Lee laughed. That was probably very true, Lee couldn't help but think as she thought back to a couple other times she had stopped by to visit him at the shop.

They had both been quite glad that there was still a bed in the back of the shop on those occasions.

"Very true. So everyday might not be a good plan," Lee decided. "Maybe once a week then. But that still leaves me with four days that I need to try and fill."

Lee seemed to know exactly what Tarin meant when he said that her visiting the shop every day would be bad for productivity. Pretty much every time Lee showed up at the shop and they didn’t have a strict timeline of when they needed to leave or somewhere they needed to be they had a tendency to just not leave. It was one of the few reasons why Tarin had never actually taken the initiative to do anything with the living space and had just left it as it was. It would help matters that Tarin had been so busy lately and the gaps in his day had depressingly dwindled…but that would just be frustrating and would not make a long day go faster.

Lee spoke and Tarin realized he’d been putting an awful lot of thought into that particular idea and grinned while shaking his head at himself and took another bite of the cheesecake. Lee spoke and Tarin nodded. Maybe once a week. There was always something to do.

As for the other four days of the week…

“If you don’t want to do more at the bar, you’d talked about wanting to get back into volunteering. I’m sure there’s plenty of places that could use more hands on deck…just maybe avoid the ones that want you on a construction site.” sure, all indications suggested that the building collapse they’d been involved with had been a fluke…but better to be safe than sorry.

“That might be a good thing to do a couple or a few days a week.”

If she didn't want to do anything else at the bar. That was always an option, but there really wasn't a whole lot else that she could do there during the day. To do more at the bar would, in essence, mean actually spending less time with Tarin and still not really solve her problem of what to do during the day. Unless she ended up spending that time during the day sleeping.

Tarin was right about how she'd kept talking about wanting to volunteer, though. And that might be a good thing for her to do. "I promise, no construction sites," Lee said with a bit of a laugh. "But that would be something worth looking into."

Taking another bite of the cheesecake, Lee then smiled up at Tarin. "This is good. Thank you."

Lee promised to avoid construction sites and Tarin smiled a bit gratefully. If Lee had really wanted to get out and do something like that again, Tarin wouldn’t have done a thing to stop her, but he wasn’t going to argue if she said she was going to avoid them on her own.

Volunteering was a really cool thing though, and with as much as Lee liked to help, it would play double duty by giving her something to do with her time and it would be something that was genuinely helping.

Pleased with himself for coming up with the good idea, Tarin took another bite of the cheesecake as Lee pointed out again that the dessert was good and thanked him.

Tarin shrugged at the thanks, “I realized that you had me at a bit of a disadvantage in this department…” he said, “You still do if we’re being honest.” he added before taking another bite of his quickly dwindling slice of cheesecake.

”I didn’t make this and you actually made my pie.”

Lee was a little confused when Tarin said that she had him at a disadvantage. How could she have him at a disadvantage when she was thanking him for the cheesecake.

Tarin continued a few moments later when he brought up the fact that she had made the blueberry pie for him. Lee blushed slightly as she dropped her eyes down to her plate. "I…no," Lee said quietly. Then shook her head slightly as she glanced up at him through her lashes. "This was a great idea, Tarin. Thank you."

The blush still on her face, Lee took another bite of her cheesecake before looking fully back up at Tarin. "Did you have any other plans for tonight after this?"