Lemon Truffles - Love Instantly by Cece Monét

her senior in fact, had died of natural causes about a year later. Cheng didn’t really allow himself much time to think of them these days, but he missed his parents, especially his mother. That was probably another one of the main factors in why working through things with Angela and being able to see Jayden was so important to him right now.
    Although things being so unsettled between him and his son’s other parent was continuing to make everything extremely complicated. He also didn’t want Jayden to keep thinking of him as just some random nice man from his mom’s job. Cheng wanted Jayden to know who his father was. However, Cheng didn’t have much experience dealing with small children.
    How did he broach such a delicate matter with a four year old? He laughed as he envisioned a Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker revelation moment between the two of them. Well, at least Cheng hadn’t lost his sense of humor.
    In preparation for tonight, both Cheng and Angela had left work earlier than they normally would have. This was to say, that it was only 7:00 pm now as he found parking on Angela’s street, instead of after 9:00 pm. Cheng knew this meeting had more significance than any other high stakes business meeting he’d ever had in his life and he was super nervous. Other than the items Angela had emailed him about a month ago, the only real prep he’d had for spending time with his son was doing a Google search to find out just what the hell Yo Gabba Gabba even was.
    Cheng rang the doorbell, still uncertain about what to expect this evening. When she opened the door, Cheng could tell that Angela had showered and changed. Now, she looked at home, comfortable and relaxed, lounging in a black stretch velour zippered hoodie and matching pants.
    She also wore black flip flops that showed off her cute, hot pink pedicured toes, a drastic change to the severely professional attire she always wore to work and he liked it. He again felt her lure pulling him in, giving him the intense desire to hug her, but he managed to ignore it.
    “ Hi, please come on in,” Angela told Cheng as she stepped back so he could pass. He removed his shoes and left them on her porch before entering her home.
    As soon as he stepped through the door, Jayden came running forward. “Yay! Hi mister. I’m glad you came. I knew you would. Do you want to watch TV or see my room first?” Cheng glanced nervously at Angela, who only smiled casually and shrugged.
    It seemed that they were both now at the full mercy of their son. Before he got dragged into his four year old’s world too completely, Cheng opened a small gift bag he’d brought with him. “We can do whichever one you’d like to do first, but before we go, I brought a few things for you and your mother.” He then presented Angela with an assortment of chocolate truffles, exported from Hong Kong. He had a feeling she’d especially enjoy the lemon truffles the best.
    “ Thanks,” she said quietly as she took the small package from him. He enjoyed that giving her such a small token could make her flush with such tremendous pleasure. He couldn’t help but wonder what her reaction would be if he were presenting her with a ring instead…
    Before he got too caught up in that fantasy, he pulled a small box out of the bag and handed it to Jayden. The boy opened the little hinged jewelry box to reveal a miniature hand-crafted jade dragon pendant attached to a thin twenty-four karat gold double stranded rope chain. “Cool! Can you help me put it on?” Jayden asked after he’d attempted to remove it from the box.
    Clearly flustered that he was having such a hard time getting the dragon chain out of the box, he silently handed the opened lidded, black velvet covered box back to Cheng. In turn, Cheng dutifully accepted the box back and removed the jewelry from its container before sinking down to his knees behind Jayden to attach the chain to his boy’s neck. As he latched the clasp, he caught