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Disclaimer: Scarecrow and Mrs. King and its characters belong to WB and Shoot the Moon Productions. No infringement is intended. This is written for entertainment purposes only. Please do not redistribute or reproduce this story without my permission.

Summary: Lee's first official morning in the King household.
Breakfast – The Most Important Meal of the Day

Lee opened his eyes. He couldn't believe it. No more secrets. No more mystery marriage. Everything was out in the open. Well not exactly everything. They still hadn't come clean about their jobs. Not yet, anyway.

Today was the first morning he had woken up in Amanda's bed in her house. She kept telling him it was `their' house, but he had a hard time thinking of it that way. One of the first things they planned to do in the coming months was look for a new home. But for now he was content. He no longer had to wake up in an empty bed.

Glancing over at his wife's side of the bed, he found her missing. Okay so even now he was waking up to an empty bed. But he knew she wasn't far. He stretched his arms over his head as he heard the water in the bathroom turn off. If he'd woken earlier, or better yet she had woken him, he would've joined her in the shower.

"Morning, sleepyhead." Amanda said as she came out of the bathroom dressed in a pair of jeans and sweatshirt.

"You should've woken me. I could've joined you in the shower." He wiggled his eyebrows at her and rose from the bed.

"Didn't you get enough of that last night?" She tossed him his sweats.

"Never." He grabbed her arm, pulled her next to his body, and kissed her hungrily.

A knock on the bedroom door interrupted them.

"Grandma says come down to breakfast." Phillip yelled through the closed door. "And she says to tell Lee that breakfast is the most important meal of the day."

Lee groaned as he heard the familiar quote.

Amanda opened the bedroom door a little ways. "We'll be right down, sweetheart."

"Come on, you'll need your strength. We still have all those boxes to unpack and others to put up in the attic and garage for storage."

He'd forgotten what a hassle it was to move. Maybe that's way all the other times he'd hired movers to do it all for him, from boxing everything up, to unpacking them in his new apartment. But Amanda had said why waste the money to hire someone when they could do it themselves and had two teenage boys that could help. She did relent when it came to moving the heavier furniture though and he'd rented a storage space. They didn't want to get rid of anything yet since they might need it for their new house. Somehow, though, they'd still managed to bring a ton of boxes to be either stored or unpacked.

He pulled on his clothes. "I really don't like to eat much for breakfast. You know that."

"I know, sweetheart, but mother is expecting you to eat. And eat you will." She placed her hands on her hips.

"For you I'll do anything. Even eat breakfast." He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her lightly on the lips.

"That's better. Now get dressed."

After quickly washing up and shaving Lee followed his wife downstairs. When he entered the kitchen he saw Dotty placing crispy bacon on a platter.

"Have a seat. Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes." Dotty picked up a large bowl and began to stir it.

"It smells delicious." Lee felt his stomach grumble with hunger as the aroma of the bacon wafted around him. Okay, a real breakfast besides coffee and a stale roll did sound appealing.

"I'll help mother."

"No, dear. This is my treat. I'm making a special breakfast for Lee." She placed the bowl down and picked up a pitcher of orange juice. "Here you can pour the juice." She handed Amanda the pitcher.

"Can I do anything Dotty?" Lee had no idea what to do with himself. It was going to take some getting used to living with a family.

"Nope. You're the guest of honor." She picked up a spatula and waved it at him. "But don't be getting used to this type of treatment. We don't always eat like this every morning. But we always have something even if it's only a bowl of milk and cereal.
Remember, breakfast is . . ."

"The most important meal of the day." Lee finished the sentence for her.

Dotty smiled. "That's right. Now go sit down and drink your juice. The coffee is already on the table."

Lee sat down next to Amanda at the breakfast table as she poured coffee into two cups.

Jamie bounded into the kitchen. "Bacon, eggs and pancakes. Yes." He pumped his arm in the air.

"Here you put the bacon on the table." She handed Jamie the platter.

"Is breakfast ready?" Phillip asked as entered.

"Almost." She ladled pancake mix onto the griddle. "Here take the eggs. I just have to make these pancakes."

"Okay." Phillip took the eggs and placed them in the middle of the table. Then he hit Jamie in the arm and motioned with his eyes to look at their grandmother.

Lee wondered what was going on between those two. They both stared at Dotty intently.

Dotty stood over the griddle a perplexed look on her face and he could tell she was mumbling something to herself.

Several minutes later Dotty placed a platter of the largest pancakes he'd ever seen in his life on the table. "I'm sorry, I don't know what happened, I had some of my special pancake mix leftover from a few weeks ago, they cooked up perfectly last time and I didn't do anything different this time, I added the same things I always do, they've never done this before, they've always been perfect, I don't know if they're even edible, I should probably just throw them away."

Lee couldn't believe she'd said all that in one breath. Now he knew where Amanda got her gift for rambling. Dotty was the master of the rambles.

Suddenly both Jamie and Phillip began to laugh hysterically, so much so they had tears in their eyes.

"April Fool," they said in between bouts of laughter.

"Boys what did you do to your grandmother?" Amanda asked looking at them sternly.

"We put quick acting dry yeast in the mix." Jamie said as he stopped laughing."

"Yeah, we wanted to see what would happen and thought it'd be a great April Fool’s joke to play on you grandma." Phillip added.

"We thought they'd blow up into huge masses." Jamie interjected.

"Well they kinda sorta did that." Lee stated as he eyed the monstrous cakes.

"That explains it. The yeast activated when I added the milk." Dotty began to laugh. "Well then, since these huge pancakes are your creation, the both of you can eat them." She placed the platter between them.

Both boys looked at their mother their faces dejected and worried. "Do we have ta, Mom?"

Amanda laughed. "I guess not." She tapped her finger on her lip. "On second thought, you both need to take at least three bites."

"One." Jamie countered.

"Two and that's my final offer." Amanda placed a huge pancake on each of their plates.

Lee handed Phillip the syrup. "Enjoy."

He watched as Phillip drenched the pancake in syrup and handed the bottle to his brother, who did the same to his.

Everyone at the table stared at the boys as they took the first bite. Lee had to suppress the urge to laugh at the faces they made after swallowing. They each grabbed a glass of orange juice and gulped it down. Then silently they picked up their forks to take another bite.

"You don't have to eat anymore." Amanda buttered a slice of toast.

"They tasted awful." Phillip grabbed a handful of bacon.

"Yeah." Jamie agreed and also piled his plate down with bacon.

"But remember the day isn't over yet and I have a feeling your grandmother will pay you both back." Amanda shook her finger at them.

"Right the day is young." Dotty sat down and put bacon and eggs on her plate. "And I have all day to think of something appropriate."

Phillip and Jamie looked at each other. "Nope, now we'll be on guard," Phillip said.

"Yeah." Jamie agreed.

Lee had silently been watching the exchange between family members. This was what it was like to be part of a family. Laughs. Jokes. Love. And he began to laugh out loud. "I don't know about the rest of you but I'm starving."

"Let's eat." Phillip handed Lee the platter of bacon.

Lee piled his plate with bacon and eggs and dug in. Now he just had to think of a good April Fool's joke to play on his wife.

Later that evening, after a dinner of pizza Dotty told the boys to put away the clean clothes she'd left on their beds. Moments later both boys came rushing back into the den.

"My clothes are all pink!" Phillip exclaimed.

"Mine, too." Jamie said holding up what was now a pink undershirt.

"Oh dear, I don't know what happened." Dotty replied. "Maybe something red got into the wash mistakenly."

"Oh, no," Phillip cried. "I can't wear this in gym class all the boys will laugh at me."

Amanda had been sitting next to Lee on the couch and he felt her body tremble as she tried to suppress laughter. It was then he knew Dotty had gotten the boys back for their joke this morning.

Dotty reached under the chair and pulled out two packages of white t-shirts. "April Fool's boys." She tossed each of them a new set of shirts.

That reminded him, he still hadn't thought of an appropriate joke to play on his wife. Oh well there was always next year. That'd give him plenty of time to think of something good.

The End
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